


In Good Company

by Redisaid



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, Warcraft III, World of Warcraft
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arthas is dead, But no one else is gonna die, Cultural Differences, F/F, First human ranger Jaina, Fluff, High Elves!, I promise, It's time for my self-indulgent elf fic everyone, Music, No Third War AU, Please allow me to make up for my sins with a:, Ranger General Sylvanas, Sisterhood, Slow Burn, The return of Sassyvanas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2019-11-19 09:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18133832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redisaid/pseuds/Redisaid
Summary: “Show me what? Parlor tricks? No, my prince. I don't need a magistrix. I have a perfectly good one already. I need a ranger. I need someone who can shoot, track, and understand the forest. Parlor tricks don't protect our borders. They don't help me to keep the trolls at bay. I need an elf. I need someone who will be able to work with her sisters and at the very least, understand us.”Kael'thas opened his mouth to object, but another voice offered its own opinion instead.“Oh, I can shoot well enough,” the human rose from her seat as she offered...in perfect Thalassian. “And I do not think that me understanding you will be a problem.”





	1. Game to Lose

“No.”

“Sylvanas,” Kael’thas replied, her name coming out like an admonishment. “You can’t be serious. At least talk to her.”

“There’s no need for that. No. It will not work. That's my answer,” Sylvanas told him. She had every right to refuse her prince, and the authority to do so as bluntly as she pleased, especially if he was going to waste her time like this.

And he’d had the audacity to bring her all the way to Dalaran to have her meet a mage that wanted to become a ranger. And the audacity not to tell her that said mage was a human.

A very young-looking human woman, at that. Barely more than a child by their standards. She sat at the other end of the terrace, waiting for them, facing away from them at just the right angle for Sylvanas to immediately see small, rounded ears poking through her golden hair, which was oddly streaked with a great deal of stark white. Oh. That one, then. Interesting, but no, not what she needed.

Kael'thas offered a heavy sigh, but kept to their whispered conversation at the door to the terrace. “And here I thought you would champion this. You with your desire to work closer with the human kingdoms, and Marris--”

Sylvanas all but snarled, “Don’t even start with me about Nathanos Marris. I made that recommendation as a statement, not out of any real desire to have him as a ranger. That training class was so piss poor that a human would have been a better choice for a promotion than any of them. And we still didn't bring him in. Do you know why, Kael’thas? Do you care even?”

“Not enough to truly bring this up again,” the prince said with another deep sigh.

But Sylvanas had to be sure she would make him regret it. He was the one to bring it up, after all. “Because he would never have been accepted. Even if he outshot the lot of them in that trial, which he did, he would never have fit in with a unit. That was the point. It was an exercise in ridiculousness. And now you are asking me to take this one seriously? Or are you just fucking with me again?”

Kael'thas was getting agitated now. Good. That made two of them, then. She could see it in the red tips of his ears. The prince raised his voice a bit as he protested, “If you would just give us a chance to show you--”

Sylvanas followed suit. By the sun, it felt good to knock him down a peg, to wipe that fake grin off of his smug face and have him lose his cool. “Show me what? Parlor tricks? No, my prince. I don't need a magistrix. I have a perfectly good one already. I need a ranger. I need someone who can shoot, track, and understand the forest. Parlor tricks don't protect our borders. They don't help me to keep the trolls at bay. I need an elf. I need someone who will be able to work with her sisters and at the very least, understand us.”

Kael'thas opened his mouth to object, but another voice offered its own opinion instead.

“Oh, I can shoot well enough,” the human rose from her seat as she offered...in perfect Thalassian. “And I do not think that me understanding you will be a problem.”

“Shit,” Sylvanas swore, this time quietly enough that she wouldn't be heard.

“As I was saying,” Kael'thas chuckled, his pout immediately turning into an all out grin. “If you would just give me a chance to introduce Lady Proudmoore here, you might be pleasantly surprised.”

The human girl curtsied briefly at this introduction. She was tall for her kind. Sturdy, as they all were. Even in the flowing purple and white robes of a Kirin Tor mage, Sylvanas could see she was sturdier than most, actually. The silky fabric didn't cover the signs of strength from her keen eyes, nor the broadness of the human's shoulders. Fine, an archer. Certainly. But...

“You hadn't mentioned the part about her speaking our tongue,” Sylvanas whispered in retort to the prince.

“I hadn't mentioned a lot of things. On purpose. I knew your first impression would be better without any nagging expectations hanging over it,” Kael'thas muttered back. “So, how long are you going to continue being rude to my guest, Ranger General?”

She answered with a glare, then transformed herself as if by magic. Only it was no magic, just the careful grace and practiced artfulness of a good century or two dealing with politics she’d never really wanted a part of. Unfortunately, they continued to invade Sylvanas’ life to a degree she would never quite feel comfortable with, and that she was never happy about. But she would adapt. She would bend and bow and smile when needed. It was part of what she had to do, another duty of the heavy mantle that she had inherited, so she just did it.

“Forgive my hesitation, Lady Proudmoore, was it?” she said, slipping behind the Ranger General’s mask again. It was a stern, but open face. “My prince here didn’t give me much in the way of details about this meeting.”

She began to approach the table that the girl stood in front of. Sylvanas had a petty thought, dismissed it, then summoned it back again. No, she was allowed to be petty. She’d been dragged to fucking Dalaran after all. So yes, she extended her hand, and waited for a ranger’s handshake to be returned.

The purpose of this meeting was for her to test this woman, right? So, yes. She would test her.

Lady Proudmoore looked quizzically at her hand as Sylvanas reached her. She began to speak first, “Jaina Proudmoore, my lady.” Only then did she offer a return handshake. Just a solid, firm grasping of hands. Like they were making a deal.

Nope. Wrong. Already wrong. She was supposed to grasp her forearm and let Sylvanas do the same for her. 

No matter. “None of that ‘my lady’ business with me, please. I’m sure you already know who I am, so no need for that either,” Sylvanas said as she returned the merchant’s handshake without stumbling.

“It is hard not to know, General Windrunner” Jaina told her as she took her hand back. “Though Kael’thas does talk quite a bit about how you vex him so. I can see the feeling is mutual.”

Her Thalassian was great. Too good, actually. She sounded like a textbook, which is probably where she’d learned most of it from. 

Sylvanas offered her a smile anyway. The girl had at least gotten one thing right so far. “We do like to keep each other on our toes,” she admitted. “Let’s skip the rest of the formalities then. I’ve been told you want to be a ranger. Why?”

Kael’thas stepped in and swept an arm over Jaina’s shoulders, answering for her as he drew the mage into an awkward side-embrace she clearly hadn’t been expecting, or wanting. “Not just a ranger,” he corrected. “Lady Proudmoore has been developing a specialty technique for combining magic and archery. It could revolutionize our arsenal, our entire military.”

Sylvanas leveled her gaze at him. She couldn’t see it herself, of course, but she did her best to make sure it was extra steely as she said, “A military that works just fine as it is, and is certainly not in need of anything revolutionary.”

“Don’t start,” he snapped back at her, then turned to Jaina, who was trying to squirm out of his arm, albeit somehow very politely. “Please forgive Sylvanas here. She’s a woman of action, you see. Why don’t you just get straight to the demonstration then, before she forgets her manners again?”

“Very well,” Jaina said, seemingly grateful for the opportunity to completely shrug out of Kael’thas’ embrace. She gave Sylvanas a brief nod before heading over to an odd-looking white bow with silvery accents that was leaning against the railing of the terrace. And curiously enough, with no quiver, and no arrows in sight. 

“You seem like you are well acquainted with Lady Proudmoore here,” Sylvanas muttered to Kael’thas as they watched the girl walk away. “Where do I know that name?”

“Don't be coy,” Kael'thas scolded again. “She's the Lord Admiral's daughter. Yes, that one. And you knew that already. Don’t lie and tell me you didn’t. As for how we are acquainted, Jaina is a dear friend, and a refreshing delight in this otherwise stuffy old city.”

Sylvanas hummed her answer, and let the smirk on her face speak for her instead.

She watched as the mage retrieved her bow. It was beset with several varieties of mana gems, which began to glow at her touch. Jaina took up the bow, but kept a decent bit of distance between herself and the observers. Sylvanas watched her as she prepared, watched the movements. She wanted to see signs of someone who actually felt comfortable with such a weapon, and not just a person that was trying something new. And she saw them. It was hard to explain, but she could almost feel the flow of the movements herself, the ease at which Jaina checked the string, then set the weapon at rest, holding it next to her hip with one hand on the grip. Steady. Determined, even.

Her eyes shone without glowing--a flash of the color of a warm sea, like any good child of Kul Tiras. She looked directly at Sylvanas as she held out the bow.

“I am certain you noticed the lack of arrows,” Jaina called across the terrace. “But I am also certain you have seen spellbows before. The trick with those is that they lack a string. They are just another method of focusing magic, a strangely shaped staff, if you will. But the problem with those is that you must use the power of the spell to propel it. You must either give up power, or give up distance. But, what if you did not have to give up anything?”

With a whispered incantation, Jaina conjured herself a few targets in the distance, hanging high above the purple domes of Dalaran. She readied her bow, bracing for a shot and drawing it. Ice crystalized from the hand that held back the string, forming an impressive projectile, both of physical and magical substance. Jaina didn’t let it shape as such things usually did, but guided the ice into forming a more aerodynamic, and balanced projectile--one fit to be fired from a bowstring.

“What if you could have both?” Jaina asked as she let the shot fly. Her ice lance flew from the bow's power instead its own, arcing gracefully into the air before it shattered on one of the conjured targets, destroying it in a hail of frost and arcane sparks.

Before Sylvanas could even react, Jaina fired off two more shots, one in the form of an arcane missile and the other as a firebolt. Both hit their mark and obliterated the targets as they did.

“An interesting thought,” Sylvanas mused as she watched the magic dissipate over the rooftops. “But where's the revolution?”

“There are ten revolutions there at least!” Kael'thas immediately argued. “One, no arrows to run out of--”

“But mana to be drained, which you, my dear prince, know well enough is not infinite,” Sylvanas countered.

“Fine, but magic can penetrate--”

“Many defenses, yes,” Sylvanas finished for him with a wave of her hand. “And it can be just as easily countered as an arrow. If using magic were enough to defeat the trolls, then we would have been done fighting for our lands many millennia ago.”

The prince just fumed now, his ears going red again. 

So really, only two revolutions, neither of which really solved anything for her.

Sylvanas set her eyes on Jaina again. “Make the targets move while you shoot, then do the same three again,” she commanded.

The girl met her gaze. Oh, there was a hardness in those sea blue eyes. Either she did not like being told what to do, or wasn't happy about having her demonstration commandeered. Wait no. It was something else. 

Jaina kept her eyes on Sylvanas as she conjured up three more targets, even further away now, and set them to move in looping patterns. She only turned away to aim and fire her three shots, frost, arcane, and fire again. She didn't bother to watch them land, but turned back to Sylvanas as all three targets shattered again in a hail of magic.

Sylvanas answered that with another demand, “Prince Kael'thas, could you supply three more targets for us? Moving ones, please.”

“She just did that,” Kael'thas objected.

“On her own conjured objects. Not that I don't trust Lady Proudmoore’s aim here, but I don't really. Such trust must be earned,” Sylvanas stated coolly. All the while she could feel those aqua eyes burning into her.

Good. 

Kael'thas rolled his eyes as he summoned up three more targets and sent them floating off near the same distance that Jaina had placed hers. They swept lazily across the sky.

“Surely you wish to give your friend more credit than that?” Sylvanas said as she regarded their placid speed.

Kael'thas looked between her and Jaina for a moment before he snapped his fingers. The targets sped up significantly, zigzagging through the sky. 

“Excellent,” Sylvanas said with a nod, then turned back to Jaina. “Once more, if you would be so kind, Lady Proudmoore.”

Jaina already had her frost lance summoned, and turned to chase the targets. She didn't try to show off. She didn't try to shoot as quickly as possible. No, she watched, she waited, and she learned the patterns of the targets. She took only the time that was needed, nothing less, nothing more. And she didn't miss a single shot, yet again.

Sylvanas let a smile slip through her mask. “One more ask, then I will be satisfied. Kael'thas, three more moving targets, please. Lady Proudmoore, catch,” Sylvanas said shrugged the bow off of her own back and threw it, along with a quiver of arrows, to Jaina. 

It was an ornate, but otherwise ordinary ranger weapon. Nothing special or legendary today. Not for a trip to Dalaran, no. If anything, it would be another test. The draw weight on elven bows was reasonably high. And, well, the girl needed to be able to actually shoot, after all.

But Jaina showed no hesitation as she caught the bow and the ammunition that sailed along with it. She'd even managed to set her spellbow aside beforehand to do so gracefully.

Kael'thas complained again even as he summoned more targets, “Really? Wasn't that enough for you?”

“I told you. I need a ranger. You have a fine magistrix here, and a very interesting little weapon in both her and that thing you are calling a bow. But I have a magistrix. I am missing a ranger,” Sylvanas reminded him. 

Kael'thas sent the targets out anyway, but called to Jaina all the same, “You don’t have to do this. Let's just sit back down and--”

“No, your highness.” Jaina responded sharply as she took up Sylvanas’ bow, testing the bend of it and examining the string. “I believe I do need to do this.”

Sylvanas watched Jaina step into the bow. Oh yes, it was a little much for her. She could see the strain. But that didn't stop her. Jaina fought through it, steadying herself as she figured out how to compensate otherwise, how to channel more strength from the rest of her body to make up for what her arms lacked. She knocked an arrow. She took aim. She fired. She hit one target, then two, then three. A little slow, a little cumbersome, but accurate, skillful, and once again, utterly determined.

“Now we can talk,” Sylvanas said, this time with a genuine smile as she left a still ruddy-eared Kael'thas behind to retrieve her bow.

\---

“Must you hover over us like a vulture?” Sylvanas asked the prince.

She’d already invited Jaina to take a seat with her at the table she’d been waiting at before, but stopped Kael’thas in his tracks with just a glare.

Tides, that intensity. Jaina watched with wonder as the elven woman turned it on and off at will--going from smiles and laughter one second to casually intimidating in the next. As it always was with elves, Jaina knew that the two of them were speaking with body language she didn’t understand either, despite her hard-earned mastery of their spoken words. She was trying her best, though--noting the cant of their ears, the glow of their eyes. Even then, she could see that there was more to this little rivalry of theirs that Kael’thas had let on. Much more. 

“Can’t you see that Lady Proudmoore here is in need of refreshment after that ordeal? I certainly am,” Sylvanas went on. 

Kael’thas offered her one last tilt of his head, small and subtle, before his ears flicked back and he replied, “Very well. I’ll find someone to bring us some wine.”

“How kind of you, my prince,” Sylvanas replied, her words dripping with honey, but her eyes hard and silvery.

Jaina had never seen an elf with so little blue to their glowing gaze. She guessed that this oddity seemed to help with Sylvanas’ ability to command with a look alone. She’d expected that. She’d been told as much. It was the rest that she hadn’t expected. The bluntness, the smiles, and no one had bothered to tell her that the Ranger General of Silvermoon was incredibly beautiful on top of it all--with her equally silver-tinged blonde hair and her sharp, almost feline features.

Sylvanas’ glare only softened when Kael’thas finally slipped away. She turned her attention back to the spellbow that Jaina had put on the table for her to examine. She ran her hands over its alabaster limbs with a level of distinct disinterest for a moment before she looked to Jaina again. 

“So tell me,” Sylvanas began, “Now that you might be free to speak it--and know that I will encourage you to be nothing but honest with me--what did Kael’thas tell you about me...about all of this you’re asking for?”

Well. Jaina should probably have expected this. That didn’t mean she was ready for it. “I...It is…”

“He’s put you up as a piece in his game here, you realize. I know you’re smart enough to know that,” Sylvanas told her. “I can see it. So my question for you is what do you get out of it? What’s in it for you?” 

“This is a game that I am only just beginning to understand,” Jaina admitted as she recovered herself a little. “I will tell you that when he first brought up the idea, I had not really considered what it would mean, to be the first human ranger. I know it has been attempted before, and at your behest…”

“As a part of the game,” Sylvanas noted with a nod. She was so calm, and her face was so still even as she breathed out such accusations. “Allow me to enlighten you then. You deserve to understand, and we only have so much time to dance around this before he finds a reason to come back. Kael’thas likes to feel important. He likes to think that he can order us around. Truth be told, though, he has no power over the military of our nation. And he hates it. Even the king himself is limited in what he can do without the approval of myself or the Ranger Lords. Our prince has been looking for a place to feel like he had influence and power. He’s been barking up my tree ever since I came to power. So tell me now, what is he offering you in return for digging out a place in my realm?”

Jaina could feel each word like a knife in her chest. No! This was not how this day was supposed to go! “What? Are you suggesting he is bribing me? We have not even discussed such--”

“Oh not yet,” Sylvanas said with a shake of her head. “No. That’s not his way. But he might have hinted at it. He might have given you a taste. Power within the Kirin Tor then? I know you’re quite young yet, especially to have come as far as you have already. Is he offering to marry you off to someone? Or is it a debt to be paid? Elven gold that will save an ill-fated venture? Come now, be honest with me.”

Jaina was at a loss for words. It was none of that. It never was. It never had been. But there wasn’t time to to explain. Kael’thas had come back out onto the terrace, with two servants in tow.

“You wish me to be honest, Ranger General?” Jaina asked quickly, her voice low enough that she hoped Kael’thas would not hear. “Here is the honest truth of it. I do not belong here, where respect is a thing only given to men with grey beards. I do not belong in Lordaeron, as I am sure you have heard about. I do not belong in my homeland, where the people fear and misunderstand magic. I have never belonged anywhere I have been in all my life. So, Quel’thalas is worth a shot.”

One of Sylvanas’ long eyebrows shot up, finally breaking her impassive mask. That was it. She said nothing, but Jaina didn’t doubt that it was because she could hear the footsteps approaching behind her. 

She flashed Jaina a fanged grin before turning back to the prince. “Ah, our savior arrives!” she shouted back at him. “We were dying of thirst over here.”

“Then perhaps wine was a poor choice,” Kael’thas noted as Sylvanas finally beckoned him to take the third seat at the table. 

True to his word, the servants behind him set out two trays in the space of the table that wasn’t being taken up by the spellbow--one with an elegant crystal pitcher of the golden, sweet wine that elves enjoyed and three matching goblets, another with a collection of sliced fruit and intricate little pastry tarts. 

“Wine is never a poor choice,” Sylvanas corrected for him as she nodded to the servants to dismiss them and took the pitcher up for herself, pouring each of them a glass. Kael’thas accepted his begrudgingly, in a way that made Jaina question if the simple act of pouring wine was yet another show of dominance, another power struggle made manifest. Damn. She had a lot to learn.

She took her own glass with a leveled nod. 

Sylvanas smiled back at her again. Was that a good thing?

“What did I miss, then?” Kael’thas asked as he took a sip of the fragrant golden wine.

“Just chit chat,” Sylvanas answered as she snatched up an egg tart for herself before leaning back in her chair. 

“Getting to know your newest ranger then?” Kael’thas prodded.

“I’ve not said yes to that yet,” Sylvanas told him, waving the egg tart at him admonishingly. “Though Lady Proudmoore here has fulfilled the one major requirement of being a ranger. She can shoot, and I would venture to say she can shoot better than half of my squad. So enlighten me, Lady Proudmoore, where did you learn such a thing?”

Jaina took a sip of her wine, trying to steady herself into the answers she’d practiced for this day--the words she’d spoken into the mirror over and over, trying to make sure they sounded right, were pronounced correctly, and seemed intelligent. This was important. She knew it now. Her honesty and her drive were going to be the only things that Sylvanas cared about. She’d made that much clear already. Fine. Let her see them, then.

“I have always loved the outdoors,” Jaina began. “My father introduced me to the bow when I was very young, as he thought I could use an occupation such as hunting to get out more. My mother discouraged it, of course, until she believed it would help me to stand out in court. I kept at it when I came to Lordaeron. Formal hunts are very popular there, as I am certain you know. They only served as more encouragement for me to get better.”

“And now?” Sylvanas pressed, leaning forward again, her wine and the tart already forgotten.

That little sentence carried so much weight. Now. Now that court hunts and parties were behind her. Now that she’d been shunned from Lordaeron for years because of what she’d done. Now that she’d gone back to Kul Tiras to hunt in the mountains again, to try to find peace in the smell of the sea and the cold wind in her hair, only to find that it wasn’t there anymore. Now that she’d come back to Dalaran, hoping to find refuge in the studies that once consumed her, only to find herself mastering them too quickly, and still not being recognized for it. 

“Now, I suppose that archery has always been a passion of mine, something I was good at. We all like to do things we are good at, do we not? We like to excel. We like to get better. It is the nature of every sentient being,” Jaina told her. “I am told you and your rangers are the best. I wish to learn from the best, and to test myself with them, to see if I can join their ranks.”

“And not to mention bring her expertise in magic to--” Kael’thas stopped short as both Sylvanas and Jaina shot him a glare at the same time. He covered it with a cough and sipped at his wine again.

Sylvanas sat back in her chair again, she gave Jaina an oddly soft look as she said, “Archery is one thing, but yes, we do it well. It is what we’re known for. What I fear for you is the rest of it. Ours is a culture you will not entirely understand. What you see here, outside of our lands, is not a good representation of what we are, how we are. You know that a good majority of our kind want nothing to do with the humans still, right?”

“That is fairly obvious, even to me,” Jaina told her.

Sylvanas let a little laugh bubble up in response. “True. But still, it would be a struggle for you. You would stick out like a sore thumb in every waking moment of your days there. All eyes would be on you, and on me in return for allowing you into our ranks. Quel’thalas will not be a place you could disappear to, Jaina. It will not be a place you can hide.”

Was that what she’d wanted? Jaina had been used to eyes on her, even before. She’d wondered why, at first. She hadn’t understood. But that was all her life was now. Everywhere she went, her infamy ran before her. People stared. They whispered. Children pointed at her white-streaked hair and cried out.

“I will be the girl who killed Prince Arthas wherever I go. This is a fact I’ve finally accepted,” Jaina told the elven woman, her voice steady and strong. “Perhaps just being a human where there are no humans might be better than that. Perhaps it might be worse. The only way I will know is if I try. If you will have me.”

Sylvanas regarded her for a moment. Waiting. Watching. Studying her like a book. Jaina just kept her gaze straight and serious. She watched the flicker of the elven woman’s silvery eyes. 

Sylvanas rose from her chair in one fluid motion. She extended her gauntleted hand to Jaina again. 

“You’re lucky I like to take risks,” she said as she waited.

Jaina tried not to be too hasty as she rose with her, but still managed to scoot her chair back in way that made a horrible squeak against the tiles of the terrace floor. Sylvanas and Kael’thas’ ears both wilted at the sound. She reached out to shake hands again, to accept this deal, whatever it was.

“You’re a ranger now, Jaina,” Sylvanas told her as she slipped past her grip and settled her hand just under Jaina’s elbow, grasping at her forearm. “We shake hands like this.”

Jaina quickly followed suit. Even through the leather of her armor, she could feel the strength of Sylvanas’ arm as she clasped it. Shit. What had she done? What was she getting herself into? 

“Thank you. I will be a risk you will not regret taking, I assure you.”

Well, it was too late now.

“Welcome to the the Golden Lynxes. The rest of my squad is really going to question my sanity now that I’m inviting a human to join us,” Sylvanas laughed.


	2. You Are Here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, remember this fic? Better late than never!

"You're serious?"

"As serious as I've always been," Sylvanas offered in answer from somewhere behind the screen.

"No offense, Ranger General, but that statement isn't exactly giving me the peace of mind I'm looking for right now," the elven woman who was staring at Jaina replied, measuring tape hanging from her fingers as she stood stock still, clearly not expecting to see a human on the other side of the dressing room. 

"I'm glad you think I have such a jovial reputation, but I think this has already gone much too far to be a prank," Sylvanas told her. "As much as everyone keeps asking me if it is. Now, please offer Lady Proudmoore here the respect she deserves and see if you can't find us a summer uniform for her. Got it, ranger?"

"Understood," the woman offered as she finally relaxed and slid the measuring tape into one hand to offer Jaina a ranger's handshake with the other. "Please forgive my rudeness before, Proudmoore, was it?"

Jaina nodded her response and returned her handshake. Appropriately. Confidently, even. She was pretty sure she had mastered it by now, after spending a week in Silvermoon being introduced to just about ever important military figure there was with the same gesture.

"Ranger Brightsun," the woman introduced herself. "I work for the quartermaster here, as you might imagine. Would you mind if I took some measurements?"

"I was hoping that was the reason I was told to get in here and undress," Jaina quipped in response, with a smile to let this stranger know it was friendly. She lifted her arms and stood tall for her.

At least, she was pretty sure that was appropriate. Everyone here seemed to operate on that same thin line between humor and insult that Sylvanas constantly tread. Jaina was just doing her best to emulate it. To seem normal in a way that her appearance immediately countered.

Even as Ranger Brightsun gave her a nod and went to work with her measuring tapes, the differences between them were abundantly clear. The elven woman was small and quick, darting over Jaina's undergarment-clad body in swift, precise movements. Every measurement she took had her furrowing her long brows. Especially Jaina's feet, for some reason. She hadn't even noticed that. Of course elves had smaller feet. Of course.

"All done, thank you. You can get dressed again," Ranger Brightsun said as she unhooked a notepad from her belt and scratched out some numbers. She poked her head out from the side of the screen and called out, "Ranger General? A word?"

"I have a feeling it's several words, but say them anyway," Sylvanas said. Jaina could picture her, though she couldn't see her from here--ensconced in one of the small room’s plush armchairs like a throne, looking bored at the same time as she was smiling smugly at her own jokes.

Needless to say, the Ranger General was not the person Jaina had expected her to be. Not some stern, militant strategist. No, like all elves, she seemed to thrive on a hint of mischief.

"I meant just with you," Ranger Brightsun replied in a low voice. 

"Surely you can say whatever it is you want to say to me in front of your new sister?" 

Well, maybe more than just a hint.

Brightsun offered Jaina an apologetic glance over her shoulder. For an elf, that was downright courteous, so Jaina returned it with a knowing smile and a nod as she continued to put her robes back on.

"I don't know if we have anything that will fit her," Brightsun said, her head sticking out from the screen again. "I mean, if you'd told us ahead of time, we could have made something, but--"

"Humans are not that different from us," Sylvanas cut her off. "A bit thicker in the hips and thighs. Taller, maybe. But they don't have two heads or a tail or anything like that. Surely you can make something work? We are not asking for much. A summer kit, that's all. You can do her dress uniform when we get back, even."

"Her feet--" Brightsun tried to protest again.

"Men's boots then. Come on now. Be creative for once. I know your quartermaster would love to complain about all this, so you have my permission to send her here directly if she does," Sylvanas told her. Jaina could hear her shift and get up out of the chair. "Figure it out, ranger. We will be waiting."

The door opened, and Jaina was quite certain that her new commander was holding it.

She knew for sure as Brightsun rushed out of it with a brief, but perfect salute, which Jaina caught the tail end of as she stepped out from behind the screen. 

"And please direct Captain Autumnsong to us if you see her. She'll be looking for me!" Sylvanas called after her before shutting the door and turning to Jaina, her trademark smirk clear and present on her lips.

"Captain Autumnsong?" Jaina asked. "Another outfitter?"

Sylvanas shook her head as she made her way back to one of the arm chairs. "No, thank the sun. The first of your squadmates that you'll have the pleasure of meeting, actually. She will be showing you around this afternoon while I go to debrief my second in command. Oh wait. No. My third."

"For an initiation ritual?" Jaina dared to ask.

Sylvanas plopped into the arm chair and looked up at her incredulously. "I thought you said you knew what Thalasdiel was?"

Oh she knew. Jaina knew it was a Ranger initiation ritual. That was it. The books she’d read on the subject had been light on any further details. At least she had picked up a few more things from the people who has been talking around her this last week.

"I know we have to walk a good amount?" Jaina offered, knowing as soon as the words left her mouth just how foolish they sounded. 

Sylvanas wilted in her chair. "Define 'a good amount', please?" she asked.

"I was not sure. Maybe a week?" Jaina wondered aloud.

Sylvanas all but crumpled. She hung her head in her hands, but didn't say why. She changed her next question into Common and asked, "Tell me what the root of Thalas generally means? Define it in your own language."

"Country? Kingdom?" 

"Good enough. Now do Diel."

"Journey?"

Sylvanas flipped her head up in a cascade of platinum blonde hair and blue hood. "So how long does a ‘kingdom journey’ take?" she asked, switching back to Thalassian and regarding Jaina with that intense, silvery gaze of hers again. "How long do you think it would take to say, walk around the border of Quel'thalas on foot?"

"Damn. Wait, really?" Jaina asked.

"Long enough for us to teach you to swear properly, I hope. Among other things," Sylvanas said with a lingering sigh.

"But how long, though?" was all Jaina could dwell on.

"Three months, maybe? In reality, however long we want it to take. The point of it is for you to get to know your squad and for the officers in it to evaluate you for placement. So until that's done, and until we've made a lap around the kingdom. That’s a small sidetrack for us, really. For you, judging by your expression, an eternity," Sylvanas replied. She stood again from the chair and went over to where Jaina was standing.

She leveled a concerned gaze that wasn't unfamiliar. Even in this week, as quickly as it had passed, Jaina had seen that look many times. She had seen it at luncheons and in grand, gilded offices, and even in the throne room at Sunfury Spire. Even now, in this quiet changing room as they stood alone, Sylvanas dressed down in a simple officer's uniform, with her top buttons undone, and Jaina back in her summer robes. Even now, without a thousand glowing eyes on them, that gaze asked the question it had always been asking. It asked Jaina if she was sure. If she truly wanted this. If she could do it. It assured her that she could change her mind, that it wasn’t too late.

And every time, she met it. She reminded Sylvanas that this was her choice. That she wasn't going to back out. Not now. Not ever, well, if she could help it. "Just longer than I expected, that's all," Jaina assured her. "A long hike sounds better than the city, at least. Not that Silvermoon isn't beautiful, but..."

Sylvanas halted in her approach, that look turning into a cocky smirk once again. "It's a lot. I know. A lot of self-important people flaunting wealth and magic, as if those things will make them better than the rest. Precisely why we need to get you something better than slippers and silk robes to walk away from it in."

A knock on the door saved Jaina from having to try to think of a witty response to that. Thankfully. Being constantly snarky was getting to be a lot of work.

"Come in," Sylvanas answered the knock.

Jaina had once thought the elves ageless. Her first visit to Silvermoon as an apprentice had shown her that she just hadn’t seen any old elves before. They did indeed age. Just, slowly, and gracefully. 

The one that opened the door was no exception to that rule. Her amber hair was beset with only a spattering of grey at her temples. Her shining eyes bore only the slightest creases at their corners. The barest hint of laugh lines remained on her cheeks after her smile faded. What would have been the signs of early middle age on a human woman bespoke an unfathomable lifespan.

This Captain Autumnsong was at least a thousand years old. 

“Illeryn,” Sylvanas greeted her with a nod and beckoned her in. “Thank you for making the journey to this dreadful place.”

“I’ve only been here for two hours, but that was long enough to see that this viper’s nest is the same as always. As if I had any doubts. It’s good to see you, Sylvanas,” the older elf offered.

Sylvanas offered a ranger’s handshake to the woman, but then pulled her into a fierce hug as both of them erupted into laughter.

Jaina suddenly felt as if she shouldn’t be there.

And as if Sylvanas sensed this, she turned the other elf out of her arms and toward Jaina. “Illeryn Autumnsong, meet Jaina Proudmoore.”

To her credit, Illeryn didn’t look too shocked. She simply offered Jaina a ranger’s handshake, and then a wink as it was a returned. “Don’t worry, I was warned in advance. And like our esteemed Ranger General here, I think that that status quo could use a few changes. Nice to have you on the team.”

“Um, thank you, Captain Autumnsong,” was all Jaina could think to say to that. She couldn’t get over the fact that she was now, on some level, peers with someone who had been alive before the very founding of the first human kingdoms. Before her own people could band together enough to create anything akin to civilization.

Every time she thought she had a handle on elven concepts of time, it all came crashing down on her again. Today had been no exception.

“Just Illeryn, girl. We’re sisters now. No need for formalities. I’ve heard you can shoot very well. Perhaps if this doesn’t take too long, we can spend some time at the range? I’d like to see this spellbow of yours too,” Illeryn said with an open, and genuine smile.

Jaina searched her features for any sign of dishonesty, but everything from the notched tip of one ear to the age-dulled fangs that poked out of her grin spoke of nothing but a very real curiosity.

“If she’s not utterly exhausted by this bullshit, perhaps,” Sylvanas chimed in. “But I have a feeling you’ll be stuck here most of the afternoon.”

“Just use your clout to have them bring us lunch and I’ll be content to wait it out,” Illeryn said as she walked off to survey the room. “I could use some new kit myself. My belts are in shambles.”

“Got it, lunch and belts. You realize that means this will take even longer?” Sylvanas told her.

“So are we talking a year instead of an afternoon now? Or a decade? I’ll be much easier to fit into a uniform if I’m just a pile of bones,” Jaina found it in her to joke.

Illeryn chuckled at that as she flopped into one of the armchairs, much the same as Sylvanas had before, and kicked up a pair of well-worn ranger boots onto one of the delicate little end tables that went with them. “If that’s what it takes. Welcome to our bureaucracy, Jaina. Not even the head of our military, or her beloved squadmates, gets prompt service at the depot.” 

As if to prove them all wrong, another knock sounded on the door before they could even laugh again. 

“Get on with it,” came from Illeryn this time.

All three women were surprised to see Ranger Brightsun come bursting in, arms full of blue fabric and oiled leather. “I got creative,” she announced as she looked for a place to set it all down.

“Here,” Sylvanas offered as she took the stack from her. “Let me guess, the quartermaster isn’t here today.”

“Blessedly,” Brightsun said with a nod. “But I’ll pay for it tomorrow I’m sure. My grand plan is to blame someone else, of course.”

“Clever,” Sylvanas told her as she flipped through the pieces of clothing and armor before setting them down on an end table that wasn’t currently being used as an ottoman. “Cleverness that I’m sure you’ll want me to pass on to someone for you.”

“I had hoped I wasn’t that transparent, Ranger General, but I’m just not cut out to be an outfitter. I think I would be better suited to go back out into the field, if possible,” Brightsun said with surprising bluntness. 

That was another thing also. With all this skirting around and seemingly required wittiness, Jaina expected the elves to as obtuse as any politician. She had expected games and schemes and lies. Instead, she found a people who wore their emotional honesty on their ears, and therefore didn’t bother to lie much. She was slowly learning the language of those ears, and why it promoted such honestly. And frankly, it was a gift. If only the whole world worked in such a way. If only all lies were so obvious and so pointless.

Then again, sometimes the lie was better. Only sometimes. 

“I see. Well, know that I’ll take that into consideration. And I would take it into even further consideration if you would find us something decent to eat. Maybe some honey bread?” Sylvanas ventured.

“I uh...I’ll see what I can do. The uniforms might need altering, though. I brought a few sizes to try. I should stick around to mark them up,” Brightsun objected.

“Well then, you’d best hurry back,” Sylvanas said as she began to pull out the pieces of a complete outfit.

As the door shut behind her, Illeryn chuckled again from her chair, a scratchy, throaty laugh. “Or, we can get ourselves a live one for once and get in and out of here with plenty of time left for the range.”

“We’ll see,” Sylvanas cautioned as she tisked at one of the shirts and set it aside. 

Again, not what Jaina had expected at all. She’d met her share of military leaders in the past. Uther was the most amicable of them, and she still couldn’t even picture him being picky over a new recruit’s armor. Or being joking and sly with his men. Or winking at a trusted offer as he tossed her a fine leather belt that was meant to go with a discarded kit.

Or eyeing Jaina up with casual indifference, and holding up a pair of trousers to compare to her hips. 

“I think these will work,” Sylvanas said as she handed them to Jaina, along with a thin linen undershirt, simple blue uniform jacket, one of the belts that didn't get tossed to Illeryn, and a matching pair of dark leather gloves--fingerless on the right hand--and boots. “Try them on while I untangle the armor pieces here.”

Jaina had to wonder, as she nodded and went behind the screen again to change, if every new ranger in Sylvanas’ squad got this treatment. If she cared enough to parade them around with her for a week, dragging them through important meetings and straight into the clutches of elven high society. Or if that was only the case because of Jaina’s round ears, full hips, and big feet. Oh, and her depressingly short lifespan. 

“Will I get to meet any of the rest of the squad today?” she asked as she began to shrug out of her robes yet again.

“I’m not enough for you?” Illeryn quipped before Sylvanas could answer. 

“Shush,” Sylvanas cautioned her as Jaina could hear her tossing around creaking leather and jingling buckles. “We leave for Thalasdiel tomorrow morning, Jaina. You’ll see them at the lodge. They will all walk with us, so you will be sick of them soon enough. Most of them are busy wrapping things up so they can be away for so long.”

“So you do think three months is a long time then,” Jaina said she she dropped her robes to the floor for the last time. She began to slide the trousers on, well, leggings really. And while they were snug on her hips, they made it up to her waist without too much of a struggle.

Both of the elves huffed a response to that, almost in unison. 

The shirt and the jacket were a much better fit, only just a little tight around her breasts, but most clothing honestly was. It was only when Jaina got to the top buttons that she really looked down at herself and thought about what she was wearing. A ranger uniform. Plain blues, bereft of any insignias or ranks or any of the decorations that came with them. No, those were earned. But that blank canvas didn’t intimidate her. In fact, it brought a smile to her face. One that wasn’t forced, for once, or returned out of politeness. A real smile.

The plain blue was a mark of opportunities to come. A chance. A new beginning. Something else. A different life, one that no one had designed for her. One that she had chosen for herself. 

One that she would prove that she had earned. 

It didn’t matter that the boots pinched her toes or that the stiff, new leather of the archer's gloves dug into the webbing between her thumb and fingers. What mattered was that Jaina looked like a ranger now. And she was one. She would be one. Starting tomorrow, she would be.

“Well, look at you,” Sylvanas said with a smirk as she emerged from the screen. “How about that, Illeryn. A human ranger.”

Jaina caught the glint of her reflection in the gilded mirror. She never thought she'd look good in a military uniform, but damn if she didn't.

The older elf was still reclined on the chair, but grinned up at Jaina all the same. “Yup,” Illeryn agreed. “It was bound to happen some time. She makes a lovely picture for it, doesn’t she?”

“Still a flirt I see,” Sylvanas said as she threw another belt at her, this one looking like it was meant for clipping a scabbard or a quiver onto, rather than holding up one’s pants. 

Wait. What?

The door opened without a knock this time. Brightsun was back again, this time bearing a tray of food--little braided rolls brushed with some sort of sticky glaze, along with a glass pitcher of water that had an assortment of fruit slices floating in it, and three cups to match. “Almost forgot this. Oh good, so they did fit. You were right about the men’s boots, Ranger General, good thinking,” she said as she set the tray down and handed Sylvanas something small. 

Too small that Jaina didn’t see it until Sylvanas held the object up to inspect it. A patch, gleaming gold on a silvery white background. A fierce lynx, charging out of a field of golden flowers. Tulips, it seemed. 

Only then did Jaina notice the same patch was proudly displayed on both Sylvanas and Illeryn's shoulders. A squad patch. For her.

“Flattery will only get you so far, ranger,” Sylvanas warned her. “But thank you for the food. Now, what about the travel pack? A mess kit? Side sword?”

“Noted, and I’m working on the rest, Ranger General,” Brightsun promised as she set the tray down and excused herself again.

Sylvanas looked over the patch for a few more moments before handing it to Jaina, seemingly satisfied with its quality. “Something to liven up that blue for you.”

“Welcome, sister,” Illeryn said with an odd reverence as Jaina took it. One that seemed strange coming from her, when she had otherwise been so nonchalant. Strange, and poignant.

Jaina found that real smile curling her lips again. Light, how long had it been since she'd felt like this? Whatever this was, it felt good. Really good.

Sylvanas held up a dyed leather cuirass for her next, with chainlink fringes dangling from the far too short bottom of it. "Let's see about the armor now."

\---

"I need her back at Sunfury by sundown, in a clean, properly fitted uniform, please," Sylvanas noted as she made her way to the door. "Preferably not too exhausted from having a pissing contest with you at the range."

"There won't be time enough for a proper one, don't worry," Illeryn assured her. She was up on her feet again, alert and ready as she saw her commander off, and still kept one eye in her new charge.

Sylvanas spoke in a low tone for her last request, "And try to keep the questions from people who don't need to be asking then to a minimum, as we discussed."

"You know I will," Illeryn answered in an equally hushed tone. 

"I know," Sylvanas said with a gentle smile. 

Illeryn was the most senior member of the squad. And she had been before Sylvanas' time even. She could have done a lot with those years, risen very far in the ranks, but Captain was more than enough for her. It always had been. Sylvanas couldn't help but see her sister in Illeryn's eyes. The other woman was basically just a calmer, more reliable Alleria, after all. It was hard not to think of her that way.

Perhaps that was what made her so easy to trust, and what made Sylvanas so glad to see her again. That she could see her again.

"We have one last social obligation to attend tonight," Sylvanas reminded Jaina in a louder voice as the human woman was adjusting one of her leather pauldrons on the other side of the room. "Then you can actually get a taste of real ranger life."

"Dinner with Prince Kael'thas, right?" Jaina asked.

"Regrettably, yes," Sylvanas answered. "I will see you then. Illeryn will escort you."

Those blue eyes finally lifted from the buckles and straps of the shoulder armor to peer after Sylvanas in askance. There were always so many questions in Jaina's gaze. Questions she never dared to ask. Even now. 

"Until then, Ranger General," Jaina said, offering a stiff salute, and in her stiff, overly formal Thalassian.

Sylvanas had been trying to crack that shell of hers for a week now, with very little success. Oh she'd gotten the occasional laugh here and there, sure, but nothing behind those walls, behind the mask that sat plainly on Jaina's face. A mask Sylvanas understood well enough.

But that wasn't who she had recruited to be the first human ranger. It was the girl that stared at her with fire in her eyes, and determination pursing her lips.

Where had she gone off to? 

Sylvanas continued to wonder at that as she made her way through Farstrider Square, and back into the administration building she'd spent far too much time in lately. She missed the sun on her back as soon as she crossed the threshold.

But at least there was a friendly face waiting there for her. 

"Ah Lor'themar," she greeted him. "Always showing me up. Now you're taking to being more punctual than me, huh?"

"We both know that was never difficult to do," he answered.

Her second in command looked as odd as she did out of battle armor, with his own blue uniform coat tight across his chest and his hair down, not even bothering with his hood in the summer heat. She was used to him in Farstrider green leathers, and younger, and with two eyes.

Funny how a few centuries can change all that. 

"And you just had to take on a recruit and do your Thalasdiel at the same time as me too," she chided as she leaned up against the wall next to him. 

"We have the best timing, you and I," Lor'themar said with a roll of his eyes. "But it should be fun to see each other on the road, and to see how much Halduron can really stretch his wings."

Sylvanas hummed a reply, saying what needed to be said of that with a single low note of her voice. "I have a feeling we will be taking plenty of portal trips back here during our walks to deal with just that," she added after a moment.

"Probably, but it will be nice to let him try all the same. If it works out, then that just means we can give him more to do. Halduron is a real bookworm. I wouldn't mind him staying back in here in the city and doing my paperwork for me while I’m out in the field," Lor'themar countered.

"Not a terrible plan," Sylvanas said as she turned a bit to give him a look. "Where is our soon to be acting Ranger General anyway?"

Lor'themar snorted. "Acting like he thinks he's ready for this, probably."

They both laughed. 

As much as she hated the city, as much as she would rather be out there, fighting and keeping her people safe, Sylvanas had to admit that it was nice to have an excuse to see her friends again. That was one part of being a ranger that wasn't exactly desirable--the loneliness, the long stretches of time between being around people she could actually stand. Even her squad rarely saw one another these days, as they only really came together in true war time.

So yes, while inconvenient, all of this had its perks.

Another figure entered the hall, but the broad-shouldered silhouette immediately gave it away as not being the slim young Ranger Lord who they were waiting for.

"Prince Kael'thas," Sylvanas greeted him as she shoved herself off the wall. "Are you lost, your highness?"

Kael'thas came into view with a scowl on his face and his ears set low already. Good. "I was looking to speak with you, actually," he said to Sylvanas. "Though if you are going to choose to start the conversation like that, I'll change my mind."

"Forgive her, highness," Lor'themar said. "I'm much more pleasant to talk to anyway, I promise."

Kael'thas sighed and shook his head. "I am afraid my patience for rangers is limited to one at a time, Lord Theron. Please wait outside."

Lor'themar shrugged and took his leave gracefully.

"At least that one knows how to follow orders," Kael'thas spat as he watched him go.

"I taught him myself. You're welcome. To what do I owe the pleasure now, my prince? Do you have more humans to pawn off on me? I'm afraid my squad is full now," Sylvanas started as she leaned back against the wall.

"No, I only wish to talk about the one human," he replied through gritted teeth, calming himself before adding a "Civilly," onto the end.

"I don't have an uncivilized bone in my body. Go ahead," Sylvanas said with a shrug.

Kael'thas let out another deep sigh before continuing, "We haven’t had a chance to talk since Dalaran. I just wanted to understand why you changed your mind all of the sudden.”

Sylvanas quirked an eyebrow at him, not expecting any sort of genuine curiosity. “She can shoot better than half my rangers.”

“You said as much before,” Kael’thas reminded her as he looked back toward the door to make sure that Lor’themar had gone out of earshot. “But I know that’s not why you accepted her.”

“You know what she’s done, surely, or the rumors, at least,” Sylvanas said.

“Doesn’t everyone?” Kael’thas asked.

“Precisely,” Sylvanas went on. “Jaina Proudmoore will forever be known as the girl who murdered the beloved Prince Arthas of Lordaeron, or killed him in some sort of freak accident, whatever version of the story you want to believe. I think she might be the only one that knows the truth. How long has it been since then? Eight years? Eight years, with the world looking down on her, judging her, accusing her, yet she still holds her head high.”

It was Kael’thas’ turn to quirk a brow this time, and his ears shot up in question. “You’re telling me you accepted her because you like her spirit? It’s not some scheme of yours?”

“Unlike you, I save my scheming for our enemies,” Sylvanas told him, gently pushing aside one of the prince’s overly large pauldrons as it swung too close for her liking. “Which is why I’m waiting for you to tell me what you want out of all of this.”

“Ah, there it is,” Kael’thas said as he took her cue to step back. “I was wondering how long it would take you to accuse me.”

“You realize that you’ve just made this very hard for yourself. My rangers are everything to me. Every single one of them. I would lay down my life for them with no question. How do you think I feel about my own squad, hmm? Do you think that I wouldn’t protect your little Lady Proudmoore from whatever you have planned for her?” Sylvanas demanded as she leaned after him, following the prince as he continued to back away from her.

“And if I didn’t have a scheme?” he asked. “If I actually just wanted to help a friend, for once?”

“And if I were that naive?” Sylvanas countered, leaning so close that she could feel the hot huff of his breath against the tip of her nose. “Listen, I have better things to be doing with my time. You can have all the fun you want with Halduron while I’m gone. I don’t need to know what you want. I will find out. And when it comes down to it, I will look out for my rangers, no matter what they look like, or where they come from, or what they might have done. So spare me the soliloquy, my prince. I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Are you dismissing me, Ranger General?” Kael’thas asked her, straightening up to his full height, looming over Sylvanas by a mere few inches as if it were a dozen feet.

“Well, we both know I can’t do that, but I was hoping you’d get the hint,” Sylvanas told him as she settled back against the wall and shrugged, though her flattened ears were a dead giveaway regardless.


	3. The Valley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to everyone who is letting me borrow their ranger OCs for this fic! UninspiredPoet, JE_Talveran, Archaema and LucastaPastatheShamanRamen!

"Hang on a moment," Sylvanas said as she waved a hand up to stop the figures approaching her.

One in worn--and as Jaina understood, old-fashioned--Farstrider greens, battle-scarred and nicked as the woman who wore them, whose roguish smile Sylvanas both welcomed and feared. Another in too-stiff and brand new ranger blues, looking questionably at her own armor, specifically the bare stomach it showed off.

Only it wasn't bare to flaunt anything. It was left that way so as not to prohibit any movement, and because any ranger worth her salt wasn't going to be foolish enough to get herself into a situation that invited injury there. Or, well, so said centuries of tradition and elven wisdom.

But Sylvanas could appreciate the effort that Jaina was making to try not to be self-conscious about wearing chain and leather that hugged her form, instead of the flowing robes she was used to hiding it in. 

"What's the problem?" Illeryn asked, genuinely curious beneath her green hood. "She's dressed and packed. Even insisted on doing her makeup."

That much was true. Jaina's eyes were lined with the same khol that all rangers used. Again, another tradition that was said to help against the glare of the sun, though Sylvanas suspected that the small amount that was fashionable to wear now didn't really offer any benefit. 

"Let me just...here--" Sylvanas blurted out as her explanation before she reached out to fix Jaina's hood, which was sliding too far back. 

And it slipped right back again.

"Ears," Illeryn sighed. "Nothing holding it up in the back."

Indeed, two sadly empty ear holes in the back of the hood were looking for purchase amongst Jaina's mixture of golden and white locks, but finding nothing.

"I...sorry. We tried before, back in my room, but Captain Autumnsong said this was going to have to be good enough," Jaina lamented, trying to wrangle the hood back up over her forehead again.

"Illeryn, please. Just Illeryn," the aging elf corrected her as she pinched the bridge of her nose. It was obviously not the first time she’d done so that morning.

"We will alter it for you later," Sylvanas assured her, trying not to be too critical. Honestly that was the only problem. Jaina was outwardly otherwise impeccably dressed and equipped. She looked every bit a ranger, a curvy ranger with no ears, no quiver, and a non-standard bow. "For today, this will do."

"Shows off your fun hair," Illeryn commented with a snort.

And earned a warning glare from Sylvanas in the process.

The quick upward cant of her ears told Sylvanas that she hadn't known that was over the line.

"Acceptable otherwise?" Illeryn asked, slowly and carefully to convey the unspoken question that rose along with those words.

Jaina was very much acceptable otherwise. Her armor fit, maybe a little more snugly in some places than it really ought to, but well enough that it wouldn’t cause her any discomfort. All of it was correctly buckled and strapped to her and she moved well in it. Her short summer cloak was slung correctly over one shoulder, with the straps of a travel pack and the holster for her bow over the other. 

Sylvanas nodded, mostly to show Illeryn that she accepted that apology. "Better than acceptable," she said, then turned to Jaina. "Just keep your head high and try not to pay attention to anyone who wants to give you a look. We're a nosy people, but not savages. Even if some choice Ranger Lords don't agree with my decision to recruit you, they won't do anything to you or interfere. They will just talk and snivel, as they do about everything that involves any sort of change."

"And if they were to be so bold as to do more than talk, you know that Sylvanas and I would fuck them up," Illeryn added safely, as she patted Jaina on the back a little harder than the girl was expecting.

"Sun above. You are going to ruin her so fast," Sylvanas sighed.

Illeryn answered with a fanged grin.

"I think I can guess what that phrase I did not know was," Jaina said as even she cracked a smile. 

Good. This was good. Sylvanas would have been way more nervous than this, were their situations reversed. Perhaps Jaina was just better at hiding it. Perhaps she was ignorant of exactly how much of a stir her very existence was making right now. Well, Sylvanas knew she was. And that was good too. For the best, really.

She had to remind herself to breathe. It seemed like she was more worried about this day than she was for her own Thalasdiel. Now was not the time.

"Well then, I just have one last thing to ask of you before we head to the Retreat," she said with measured breath as she turned to Jaina again.

A body emerged from the crowds bustling up toward Sunfury Spire. A body that had been going the opposite way, down the ramp toward where they stood. A body that Sylvanas had hoped was not clad in ridiculously large shoulder pieces and garish red robes, yet there he was. Again.

"Make that two things," Kael'thas said as he hurried over to them.

Jaina made her best effort to give the prince an appropriate bow in her armor, though she initially started to curtsey and saved it. Sylvanas immediately went into parade rest and nothing more. Illeryn didn't move at all, save for the flattening of her ears against the green hood.

"And what is the second thing, my prince?" Sylvanas asked, knowing it was already too late to escape. "I know you're not likely to wait for the first, so go ahead."

Kael’thas shot her a quick look of reproach, but proved her right as he went on anyway, “Well, I had meant to be delivering good news to you before you went off on your...hike. It’s actually about said hike.”

He moved to hand Sylvanas a sealed letter. 

“Good news rarely comes in this form,” she answered warily as she took it. 

“This time, it does,” Kael’thas stated, then turned to grin at Jaina. “Permission from Grand Magister Salonar for you to enter Isle Quel’danas. I understand a visit to the Sunwell is part of your journey, yes?”

Sylvanas didn’t bother to break the seal then, and held the letter listlessly. “Permission? She’s a ranger. She doesn’t need permission. If she is to help us defend the Sunwell, then she has as much a right to visit it as anyone else.”

Kael’thas’ attention snapped right back to her, just a quickly as the smile faded from his face. “She’s still a human. You know very well that only a handful have been allowed to see our most sacred of places. I’ve been convincing Belo'vir to relent on this since you agreed to accept her.”

“Funny that I haven’t heard a thing about it,” Sylvanas quipped back.

“You didn’t even think to ask!” Kael’thas countered, ears pricking up as he started to get truly annoyed with her. 

“I didn’t think to treat her as anything other than a ranger,” she answered, trying to keep her face in its most regal mask, while she could feel her ears heat up in rebellion. 

Kael’thas always did this to her. He was such a child. A child that was a few centuries older than her, sure, but a child all the same. 

Jaina coughed before the prince could try again. “It does not hurt to have the Grand Magister’s blessing, I suppose. And I thank you, Ranger General, for considering me to be no different than any other ranger.”

Sylvanas would have to keep to herself how disgusted she was that she and Kael’thas let out the same annoyed huff at the same time in response to that. 

“We’re going to be late,” Illeryn warned quietly. As quietly as she would ever say anything.

“Right,” Kael’thas said before he could allow himself to be told off again. “I am just trying to ensure that there are no problems for you. Any of you. But I’m expected back in Dalaran. Good luck, Jaina. I am certain our esteemed Ranger General will take good care of you.”

“Thank you for all your help, Prince Kael’thas,” Jaina replied with a nod, and reached out to give him a ranger’s handshake.

The prince looked at her hand questioningly for a moment, then grabbed it and kissed it before he turned to leave.

“What the fuck was that?” Illeryn whispered to Sylvanas as they watched him walk away

“Human gesture. I think he means to court her,” she replied.

“Gross,” Illeryn offered. "On several levels."

“I know,” Sylvanas agreed.

Jaina cleared her throat, and shook her hand just slightly as she turned back to the other rangers. “He means well, I am sure,” she told them with a slight shrug. 

“Perhaps,” Sylvanas said as she handed Jaina the letter. “Keep this with you then, in case the mages trouble us later. That will be months from now anyway.”

Jaina nodded and moved to stash the letter in a side pouch of her travel pack. “What was it you were saying before?” 

Sylvanas let out a breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding in, waiting for that to be brought up again. “Illeryn, go ahead and let the poor magisters holding that portal open for us know that we’re on our way, all right?”

The older elf didn’t need a second hint, and nodded her acknowledgement as she left them and started trotting up the ramp to the Spire.

“Oh,” Jaina uttered as she watched her go. “Should I be nervous?”

“I just...need a promise from you,” Sylvanas began. That was it. This was what she was actually dreading today. Not the scrutiny of the crankier Ranger Lords. Not Kael’thas and his schemes. Not trying to transition her work over to Halduron. 

“Am I not about to make quite a few oaths? One more will not hurt,” Jaina replied in her usual stiff and flat way, trying to emulate the joking tone that most elves used with one another, but just not quite sounding genuine. Like a person about to cry making a joke about the tears they were going to shed. They were really going to have to fix that.

“This isn’t for Quel’thalas, or the Sunwell, or the Rangers, or anything like that. It’s for me. For my sanity and my heart,” Sylvanas told her, swallowing before she went on. “I need to ask you not to use magic. Not without asking my permission first, or unless you are doing so to save your own life or someone else’s. Not forever. No. I wouldn't be so cruel. Just until we’re done with Thalasdiel.”

She had expected complaint. She had expected Jaina to launch into a rant about how that was unfair. She even expected to get a hint of what Kael’thas’ plan for her might be, and how that restriction would hamper it. 

But Jaina only asked a simple question in response, “May I ask why?”

“Two reasons,” Sylvanas answered, leveling her gaze at Jaina’s eyes. They looked nice with the kohl liner, actually. She let that settle her racing thoughts. “One, I enlisted you as a ranger. Rangers don’t use traditional arcane magics. Your projectiles are an exception to this rule of course. They are your arrows, after all. And two, we have a magistrix. A dear friend of mine, whom is just coming back to us from leave. I wasn’t certain she would. I don’t want her to feel like she’s being replaced by you.”

Jaina nodded to this, seeming to understand. Of course, that was just the shortest version of the story. There was much more that she didn’t understand, that Sylvanas couldn’t quite think of a way to explain to a human. Not yet, at least. It would get easier, once she’d actually spent time with the others. Once she’d gotten to know real elves, not snooty Dalaran mages and, well, whatever Kael’thas was these days.

“And a third reason, if I might guess,” Jaina concluded. “You want to be sure that no one else gets confused. That I appear to be a ranger through and through.”

“That really goes without saying, but yes,” Sylvanas agreed with her own nod. 

“I will have to watch myself,” Jaina told her. “If I do not remember at first, please--”

“I won’t fault you,” Sylvanas finished for her with a wave of her hand. “I know it’s not an easy thing I’m asking of you. Know that I appreciate it all the more for that reason. You will understand when you meet Cindel. When you get to know her.”

“I look forward to getting to know all of them, magic or no magic,” Jaina told her. This time, with the edges of her lips curling before the last words left them. A real smile again. Not forced. Not stilted. Not one that didn’t match her eyes.

Human expressions were so damn hard to read, so small and so undramatic, but Sylvanas was getting better at it. 

“Let’s go to them then,” Sylvanas said, returning it with a grin as she gestured for Jaina to lead the way up to the Spire.

\---

Farstrider Retreat was not exactly the hunting lodge Jaina expected. As she stared up at the gold and alabaster curves the magically-shaped building, she realized that this should have been exactly what she expected. The elves didn't build log cabins. They didn't mount countless antlers on the walls. No, they built flowing spires, towers that wandered toward the sun. Even the most rustic of their kind still built the foundations of their order on perfectly magical mortar, and dwelled within unparalleled elegance.

So yes, she should have expected this.

What she had expected, though, were the hundreds of glowing eyes, all trained on her. Most of them looked out from under ranger hoods that came in a variety of colors, all blues and greens or shades in-between. Some came from behind high collared robes of priests and magisters. All of them were so different from her own, and watching her first that reason.

True to her word, Sylvanas kept close to her and acted as though nothing was different. Though Jaina had gotten to know the woman enough in the last week to see her ears telling a different story, swiveling faintly, listening and alert, like a cat stalking prey. On the other side of her, the older Captain Autumnsong, who insisted Jaina call her by her first name--despite every etiquette lesson she'd ever received screaming at her how wrong that was--was at least outwardly wary.

"Quite the turnout," Illeryn remarked quitely. 

Elves had a way of whispering to one another very softly, when they wanted their fellows not to hear, despite all of them having ears that would lend themselves to doing just that. It was especially hard for Jaina to hear it, even without the noise of the mingling elves hanging around the steps of the Retreat. But she heard it well enough. Another skill she was trying to develop. Another on the long list of adaptations to make and be made.

"By the grace of the sun," was Sylvanas' equally quiet response, still dripping with sarcasm in its hushed tones.

Even more heads were turning as they got closer. Jaina at least recognized some of these. The Ranger Lords. Lor'themar Theron winked at her, though she questioned whether or not it could be called winking when one just had one eye.

A woman in a strange combination of dress stood with them. She wore the white robes of a priestess, but Jaina could also recognize the same sort of pouches and travel kit on her that she herself was wearing. And the blue hooded cloak, currently free from her auburn hair and hanging on her back. It was also the same as hers. A ranger priestess then? Like she had been hearing about?

"It seems like I've beaten you again, Sylvanas," Lor'themar said in greeting. "And that we are waiting on Halduron again too. Don't worry too much on my account, though. Liadrin has been providing me with wonderful company, as usual."

The priestess elbowed him in the ribs as she gave a nod to Sylvanas. 

Just a nod. 

"Ranger General, we were hoping that we might--" one dark-haired man that Jaina didn't know started as he began to make his way down the steps and toward them.

"You might wait just a little longer, if you please, Lord Hawkspear," Liadrin interrupted him. Jainas was surprised by the booming confidence in her deep voice, certainly not what she expected from a priestess. "General Windrunner needs to get her squadron together and ready for the ceremonies. Or at least, that is what she asked me to assist her with today. Right this way, please, Ranger General."

"Thank you, Liadrin," Sylvanas replied, rolling with that bold confidence that seemed to radiate off the other woman in waves as Liadrin gestured for them to follow her into the Retreat. "I will happily answer your questions once I have seen to my rangers, Lord Hawkspear."

The man grumbled a bit at the rebuff, but offered no further attempt to stop them as Liadrin lead them away from the crowd and toward a more enclosed alcove of the otherwise open building.

"Jaina, meet Liadrin, our priestess," Sylvanas said once they got past the thick of the crowd. "A literal godsend, as always."

"Flatterer," Liadrin chuckled at Sylvanas, then, still walking, extended a ranger handshake to Jaina. 

Jaina was surprised to find her hand as rough and calloused as it was when it slid up her forearm and past her glove. "Great to meet you, Priestess…?" she offered, searching for a family name as she returned the handshake. 

She never got one. 

"Likewise," Liadrin answered instead with a brief nod, brusque and business-like as she continued. "Sylvanas tells me you can take care of yourself and shouldn't create too much extra work for me. I'm eager to see you rise to the occasion. Give these curs something to think about."

"A charming description of our equally charming leadership," Sylvanas snorted as her ears cocked a little in an expression Jaina had seen before. Amusement, for sure.

Liadrin answered that with a wan smile before gesturing for her to take the lead into the alcove.

A scattering of elven women occupied it. Eight of them to be exact, leaning on walls, sitting on chairs and the edge of a coffee table. With the four that approached, an even dozen. Why a dozen, Jaina wasn't sure. Twelve seemed to be a number of significance to the elves. It had been them that had named the hours and months, after all. She was probably not wrong in guessing that it was their bakers who had decided to sell pastries in dozens either. 

So yes, twelve women. A ranger squadron. Twelve women that formed the first unit of this oddly informal military that she'd joined herself to. Twelve women who she had found out didn't regularly work together, except in times of war. They were formed out of different specialties, and performed different tasks in peacetime. But they were sisters all the same. Their bond was what held them apart, and what made them so formidable to fight against when the war horns would eventually sound. Twelve women, eleven of whom Jaina would have to prove herself to--have to show that she deserved that trust, that faith that they had in each other. 

Eleven pairs of glowing eyes, all trained on her. Eleven mouths, stilled in their conversations now, waiting.

Well, ten, really. 

"Good morning, sisters. It's good to see you all in one place again," Sylvanas greeted them. 

A few nods. A few smiles. A few mumbled responses. 

A subtle sidelong glance from Sylvanas.

And then Jaina remembering that in elven culture, one generally did not wait to be introduced among peers. Sylvanas had been helping her along thus far, but it was time for her to start picking things like this up on her own. Right. Shit. She was supposed to introduce herself. 

"It is great to finally meet you all. I am sure you probably know this by now, but my name is Jaina Proudmoore and I am so incredibly honored to be here. I hope that I will prove myself worthy of being your sister."

Mostly nods. A few scattered looks toward each other and not her. 

Oh. Not...not all of them were as welcoming as Sylvanas and Illeryn had been. 

Jaina really should have considered that.

"Don't be rude now. Go on and introduce yourselves," Sylvanas prodded them. She at least didn’t seem too concerned by that lack of reaction.

The first to speak up was a woman whose blue hood was down, sitting on her shoulders and revealing a tail of blonde hair. "Captain Tessandra Ravenmoon," offered Jaina a respectful nod, at least.

A red-haired elf, missing the tip of her left ear, gave Jaina a smile that seemed to be straining at the scars on her face. "Captain Ayndais Mistwalker."

Three Captains in the same unit? And a General? This was definitely different from any human army organization that Jaina was familiar with. So many officers.

"Ranger Selanay Nightbreeze," drawled out her name with every bit of the eye roll that she seemed to be keeping herself from doing. At least this plain-looking elf wasn't another officer. Well, at least it didn't seem that way.

"Ranger Artemisa Evenfall," seemed to be the most enthusiastic of the bunch, with her sincere ranger salute and genuine grin. She looked young, for an elf, and maybe more enthusiastic about being able to call herself a ranger, rather than to be greeting Jaina.

"Ranger Belorin Swiftpath."

"Ranger Keloria Swiftpath."

Both said their names so quickly in succession that Jaina had a hard time figuring out which one of the pale-haired twins was which. She was sure to get that wrong a hundred times, because there wasn't a single thing that distinguished one from the other. Great. Fantastic.

At least the next woman was different enough to stand out, distinct in her blue robes, though they were short enough that Jaina could see the doeskin leggings and boots she wore beneath. "Magistrix Cindel Daybringer," had a quiet voice, though her black hair was a standout among the other, fairer elves.

The last of them needed a slight cough from Sylvanas to remind her that she still had yet to speak.

"Oh, right. Ranger Valeera Sanguinar," offered a lazy salute from the wild golden hair that spilled out of her blue hood--hair that was as impractically long as it was gorgeous. The glow of her eyes carried just the barest hint of green, much like Sylvanas’ suggested more of a silver color than the usual blue.

Jaina tried her best to capture the names and faces in memory just then. Tried to ensure that she wouldn't embarrass herself. Tried to drown out the voice in her head that screamed at how similar they all seemed, and reminded herself that they were just as different from one another as any human was from another. She would learn. She had to. Because it was there. She could see it. Sure, all their faces were hawkish and feline at the same time, but this one had a rounder nose, and that one smaller eyes.

Sylvanas took a deep breath, loud enough that Jaina could hear it, before she spoke again, "I know that some of you probably don't appreciate the fact that we are starting yet another Thalasdiel again on such short notice, and that I haven’t consulted you on my choice as much here as I have in the past, but I hope that you all recognize the significance of this day. I have made it so that all eyes are on us, but I made the choice to accept Jaina not only because I believe she can handle it, but because I believe all of you can as well. So I must ask that you do your best for me today, sisters, and continue to set an example of excellence for our people, and beyond them." 

There were no cheers, no disapproving grunts, no words, really. Not even sounds, save that of the rangers standing up, moving silently together, and forming up around them. A few nods with that, maybe. A quiet laugh here. The clack of arrows shifting in a quiver. And then, as if by some magic Jaina had yet to comprehend, something that no amount of study in Dalaran had prepared her for, she and Sylvanas were suddenly at the front of a wedge formation, ready to march.

It wouldn't have been the first time Jaina felt suddenly in over her head. It definitely felt like it wouldn't be the last either. But it was certainly the first time she felt as though there might have been something to that basic training that Sylvanas was allowing her to skip. Something more than "oh, just twenty odd years of teaching you how to shoot and listen properly," as she had so flippantly described it.

Something Jaina was going to be very obviously missing.

"Relax," Illeryn said to her some time later, as she nudged her forward with the other new inductee, a young elven man named Hathvelion Sungaze, who was joining Lord Theron's squad as a new ranger. He was all smiles and laughter, beaming with well-earned accomplishment and looking forward to the long life ahead of him.

But relaxation was the furthest thing from Jaina's mind then. Blind panic was among her chief emotions then. 

But it was all too late for that now.

Sylvanas grinned down at her from the balcony she stood on, resplendent in her ceremonial armor, with Lord Theron and Lord Brightwing behind her, similarly shining in their own regalia. She continued the speech she had been giving, which Jaina had been struggling to listen to over the din of her own thoughts. "Let this be my last act as Ranger General before I hand my duties off to Lord Brightwing for a while. Please allow me to welcome Ranger Jaina Proudmoore to our ranks!"

Silence greeted her, but only for a moment. A long, painful moment. Until, behind her, Jaina heard the sound of boots on stone, beating out at solid rhythm. One that eventually the rest of the room joined in, with both more boots and applause.

But the first sounds had come from the rangers that still stood in formation behind her.

Blessedly, this gathering was not one followed by the incessant parties that had filled Jaina's life the week before. There were no more hands to shake. No more awkward meetings. No more elves intentionally mispronouncing her name, or shooting barely covered sneers in her direction. 

None of that. Once Sylvanas handed her leadership duties off the Lord Brightwing, there was just one more thing to do. 

The weight of the pack felt good on Jaina's shoulder, though much lighter than she had anticipated. What was even more welcome was the sight of the forest before them, rich in its soft gold and greens. Waiting. And bereft of most of the glowing eyes that had been staring holes into her all morning.

They were walking, finally. Farstrider Retreat was fading into the distance behind them, getting lost in the branches and leaves of tree after tree of the ancient forest that surrounded it. 

They’d let Lord Theron’s group go ahead of them earlier, while Sylvanas changed out of her ceremonial armor and into a much more practical, and muted set of teal and silver officer’s leathers. All these colors had their own meanings, which Jaina was trying her best to decipher. She’d then had to submit herself to the barrage of questions from both the Ranger Lords that were still prowling the retreat, and from a suddenly very nervous-looking Lord Brightwing. 

Needless to say, Jaina had found herself getting acquainted with the priestess, Liadrin, while they’d sat on the steps of the Retreat. She’d been nice enough, patient and curious, but as distant as any elf seemed to always be. They’d talked of things that were obvious and easy, the few experiences they’d had in common--of breezy summers in Dalaran, where Liadrin had visited a few times, and the supposed beauty of Stormwind’s new Cathedral of the Light, which neither of them had yet seen. 

But at least she’d given poor Illeryn a break. Jaina was begging to feel bad for the older elf. It was nice to see her getting to chat with the other captains. She’d been watching the hawk’s feathers on their shoulder armor bob through the air as they laughed and talked quietly together on another part of the steps. 

It was noon before Sylvanas finally emerged, still wearing her usual sanguine smirk. She’d simply led them off without much more ceremony. Not a single one of them seemed to look back with regret at the Retreat when it finally fell out of view.

Jaina found herself catching up with Sylvanas again, dogging at her heels, despite instincts that told her to mingle with the others. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in an hour. Maybe when this all felt a little more normal. Maybe when she could breathe again.

Illeryn had made her way up to the front of the column as it formed. She nodded to Jaina as she joined with them. “We’re free now, girl. Well, as free as we’re going to be for a while,” Illeryn told her.

“I will admit that this was the sort of thing I was hoping to do more of,” Jaina replied, shooting her a smile that was becoming a little easier.

She liked the older elf. Illeryn didn’t seem to have time for judgements or pettiness. She wore her opinions on her sleeve, or, well, her lack of sleeves. 

“There are many that would see this ritual as more of a trap than a blessed bit of freedom,” Sylvanas commented. She looked smaller and lighter, somehow more alive when bereft of the heavy metal of her gold-laden armor or the restrictive jacket of the cloth uniform she’d been wearing in the city. “But if they think that, then perhaps they are not the best fit as rangers. We just walked this route a year ago for Valeera, but I’ve already been missing it.”

“My feet weren’t, but I know what you mean,” Illeryn agreed.

“It only gets better from here then?” Jaina asked.

“Better, then worse, then better again,” Sylvanas replied. “A course that follows the flow life, if you will. Or at least, what we hope it will be.”

They were coming up to a cliff wall, rising above them as the forest turned to rocks before it met the sea to the east. They were entering a pass there, soon to have the hills rising on either side of them as they wound toward the borderlands, toward the distant smell of a warm ocean that rose up above those rocks. 

Their footsteps began to echo off the stone. Around her, Jaina heard conversations hush, voices still that didn’t dare join in that rhythm. Feet on stone. Feet on leaves. Feet never on snapping twigs or anything that made more noise than it had to. At least her childhood hunting in the hills of Tiragarde Sound had taught her that skill. At least she matched there.

Maybe, just maybe, she could still do this. 

The footsteps kept on, steady and slow, meandering, even. So when the first note of the song joined them, it wasn’t all that strange. It had already felt like music. What was strange was that it came so easily, and so freely from Sylvanas’ lips. 

“I live in the hills. You live in the valley. And all that you know, are these blackbirds.”

The first lines rang out against the cliff wall, perfect and true and as pure as anything. Sylvanas’ singing voice was wonderful, soft but strong, deep, but airy in just the right way. 

Jaina looked back to scan the faces of the other rangers, trying to gauge if this was normal or expect. It certainly wasn’t unpleasant, but…

“You rise every morning, wondering what in the world will the world bring today. Will it bring you joy, or will it take it away?” Sylvanas continued on, getting louder as the cliff grew higher above them.

If anything, the faces of the other rangers finally melted into a new expression. One that wasn’t strained or concerned. Just light and easy. Smiles, for some, for others, intrigue. Their ears were all swiveled forward and upright, listening. 

A second voice joined in as Jaina looked forward again. 

“And every step you take is guided by the love and the light on the land and the blackbird's cry.”

Illeryn’s voice was no less lovely, but not at all similar. It was quieter, letting her General take the lead still, as she always did, but making itself known all the same beneath her.

And then, it was eleven voices. A melody and two harmonies. All singing words that Jaina didn’t know, following a melody she’d never heard. All singing a song that it seemed like she ought to know, and all celebrating it with their own quiet reverence.

A song that was clearly meant for her to hear, even if she wasn’t ready to hear it yet.

“You will walk. You will walk. You will walk in good company.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You already know the first difference in this AU. The second, as you might have guessed, is that Valeera is a little older here, and has led a much different life so far than she does in canon. More on that later!


	4. Bright Morning Stars

_There is a song for everything,_ Jaina wrote, _and I don't know a single note of any of them, yet everyone else does. I knew this would be hard. I knew I would stand out. I just didn't think it would be a song that would make me feel the way I do now._

It was comforting, at least, to write that out in blocky Common letters, to follow the sounds along in her mind of her own native language--guttural and inelegant as her current company might think it. Truth be told, Jaina had expected to feel a certain amount of homesickness for human things. Not really any particular place, no, because she wouldn't be here if she truly felt at home anywhere else in the world. Not that, but maybe just a way of being instead. Of people not staring at her, while that was something that was still hard to come by all the same. Of maybe of just no sense of pretentiousness or entitlement. Well, no, that was also something that was hard to avoid when one frequented the halls of esteemed mages and royal courts alike.

Honestly, she couldn't put a name to what she missed, just that this--this being the constant glow of elven eyes on her, whispers as they watched her, ears tilting in ways that spoke volumes to them but meant nothing to her--was not ideal, nor comfortable. 

But Jaina took a moment to remind herself that she was used to such things. It wasn't too different anywhere else. At least the elves didn't look at her and think 'murderer'. Or maybe they did too. She didn't--no--couldn't know. Or at least she didn’t really want to.

She had been keeping a journal at the recommendation of a kind priestess that had seen to her after the incident. The same priestess that told her to refer to it as just "the incident". The same priestess that she missed dearly, and was one of the few people she regretted leaving behind when she'd chosen to leave Lordaeron the first time.

 _The songs are lovely, though,_ Jaina continued to write. _Artemisa is singing with the twins now. Something about stars in the morning. They all have wonderful voices too, pretty enough to make any tavern crowd cry three times over and demand an encore. So I can't be too upset, but it is yet another point of difference, another reason why they can look back at me and think that this was all a mistake._

She set aside her pen. Perhaps these were not the best of thoughts to dwell on. Not now. Not yet. No, she could fix this. She could show them that she was useful, that she deserved a place among them for more than just Sylvanas' intuition, or her desire to upset that status quo.

Jaina set aside the journal, wrapping it back up in the leather throngs that bound it closed. She’d only just started this one, but eventually, it would find a home with the others, with their bent spines, blunted corners, and ink-stained pages. A collection of thoughts and feelings that served as nothing more than an output, a friend who would always listen, but never had any advice to offer. A silent friend that was the only one Jaina had left to her these days.

Nope. No more of those thoughts. Jaina drew in a deep breath, the ever-present scent of leaves filling her nostrils as she looked up and faced the morning. Around her, the camp was forming up. Her squad was busying themselves with the necessary tasks of starting the day. Packing up. Cooking breakfast. Discussing their route. 

She didn’t have to sit idly by and out of the way. She belonged here. Even if she didn’t know the songs. Even if she didn’t have long ears. 

Jaina stashed the journal in her pack and scooted the rest of the way out of her tent. She adjusted her armor, already practiced at avoiding the pinch of the chainmail in the wrong places after fighting with it the day before, and regretfully put on her boots, which were much too narrow in the toes for her. Oh well, too late to complain about that. Her feet would get used to it after they stopped being one giant blister.

Then she marched, well, very gently and very carefully, over to a firepit that had been artfully, and quickly constructed in the middle of their circle of tents last night, over which a kettle sat, boiling away with some sort of porridge. And three elves clustered around it, chatting.

Liadrin, Valeera, and Selanay. Jaina chanted their names a few times to herself mentally, just to be sure she had them right. Liadrin was hard to miss in her priestess robes, at least. It was the other gaggle of younger rangers that she was having trouble with, but she was pretty sure of these two now. 

Well, maybe. 

“I’m just saying that there’s no way--” Valeera cut herself off as a single ear lifted from her mass of golden hair. Jaina had noted that she didn’t seem to like to keep it confined in her hood all that much. 

Jaina also noted that she didn’t even try to change the conversation around and kept to her silence as they watched her approach.

It was Liadrin that tried to smooth that over for her, “You’re right. There’s no way there’s enough honey in this.”

“Yup. That was it. Exactly,” Valeera agreed with her abruptly and reached for a jar next to the fire to add a few more spoonfuls of honey to the cooking porridge.

Jaina wasn’t stupid enough to genuinely think they were talking about the appropriate amount of sweetener to porridge ratio, but she was wise enough to keep her mouth shut about it. “Anything I can do to help?”

“It’s porridge, not a fine enchantment,” Selanay pointed out. She cast a side-long look at Valeera. “It’s as simple as dumping grain into water, but maybe you can help this one figure it out.”

Valeera returned that look with a fiercer, green-tinted one of her own before lazily swooping the honey spoon over the side of the pot so that it dripped a strand of the sticky substance all over Selanay’s boots. “Oh, silly me,” Valeera said as she returned it back to the jar. “How clumsy.”

“I just polished these,” Selanay said with a sigh. “Don’t think I’ll forget that, Sanguinar.”

“Oh I’m counting on it, Nightbreeze. I dare you to make this walk more interesting,” Valeera sneered.

“Ignore them,” Liadrin said with a brief shake of her head. “But I think Selanay was right about breakfast, even if she could have worded it a little better. Not much else to do here. Thank you for the offer, though.”

Well, at least that was one more friendly face to add to the list. That was three Jaina could somewhat reliably count on at this point. Three out of eleven. Shit. That wasn’t even a passing grade.

“Is there anything else I can do?” she asked.

It seemed like there were work details that went as unspoken as many other things did. It had been the same the night before. As soon as Sylvanas had announced that they would make camp here, now miles into the foothills to the east of Farstrider’s Retreat, the others had begun moving like clockwork. Like a real unit. Part of a clever automaton, moving in singular motions that, when combined, performed complex tasks. Before she’d known it, they’d constructed this camp around her, had a wonderful smelling stew on the fire, and were singing more songs. 

So many more songs. She hadn’t heard a repeat yet.

“Maybe help break down the tents?” Liadrin said as she scanned the campsite. “It seems like yours might be the only one left standing, actually.”

Jaina swiveled around to find that yes, that was the case. Even Sylvanas’ grander pavilion had already been packed away and was sitting on a pile of cloth and poles with the others. Shit. 

“I can do that,” she announced proudly as she turned and tried not to visibly wince as she all but sprinted back to her tent. 

She made quick enough work of rolling her bedroll back up and strapping it to her travel pack. It was the tent itself that gave her trouble. Like all things elven, it was enchanted. Enchanted in a way that was supposed to make it easier to use. A simple twist of the mana crystal holding the poles up had been all it took to put it up and have it sink anchor stakes into the ground around it. Jaina was so sure that twisting the crystal the opposite way would undo it, but the tent remained very much stationary when she did that. 

Okay. Fine. Maybe she should twist it the same way?

Nope. 

Did she have to push and twist? 

No. 

Shit.

“Just tap it on the long edge,” Liadrin’s deep voice sounded softly behind her. 

Jaina hadn’t heard her coming up and tried not to startle too visibly. That was...not a good thing for a ranger to do, to not notice someone walking up behind her. “I think I have tried everything but that,” Jaina noted as she did as instructed, and watched as the tent immediately retracted its stakes and began to fold itself neatly back up. “Thank you.”

“Any time,” Liadrin said with a chuckle. “Now, I don’t mean to be too invasive this morning, but I’ll just say that I’ve noticed you’re limping a little. Is everything all right?”

Fuck. Shit. Dammit. Whatever words she had yet to learn in Thalassian that probably expressed the same things, but far more elegantly and with more vowel sounds. 

So now they were going to think her deaf and too soft to even walk for a day. Great. Fantastic.

“Just a few blisters. I will be fine, but thank you for checking,” Jaina responded, not turning in case the flush she felt creeping up her neck was visible in this too-revealing armor she was wearing.

“A few blisters that can turn into months of misery for you,” Liadrin scolded. “Don’t be a martyr. I know you’re trying not to draw too much attention to yourself, but trust me when I say that this is important.”

That was enough to get her to turn around. “I am not certain what Sylvanas told all of you, but I spent the better part of last year in the mountains walking and hunting every day--” Jaina started.

“It doesn’t matter,” Liadrin cut her off, firmly, but not harshly. Her voice just had that kind of solid, commanding quality to it. A quality that Jaina still had a hard time placing on a priestess, even after she’d noticed the wicked-looking maul that Liadrin wore on her hip. “You’re not here to impress me, Jaina. You don’t have to care about what I think. What I think is that your boots are too tight and you didn’t bother to tell anyone, right?”

Damn. Was she that easy to read? That transparent? Jaina had thought herself to be a complex person, but Liadrin had read her as easily as a picture book. “I mean, maybe?”

“That’s a yes, then. Take them off,” Liadrin commanded again.

That was not a voice one said no to, so Jaina only hesitated a little before she slid off the offending footwear. 

Liadrin, to her credit, knelt and only tisked briefly at the state of her feet before she simply waved one hand over them. A bright surge of white light and a warm tingling sensation later, and Jaina’s feet were fine again. She hadn’t realized how much they were bothering her until they were suddenly not. The painless step she took toward the boots she’d set down before was evidence enough of that relief. 

“Don’t even think about putting those back on,” Liadrin told her as she stood back up. “We’re getting you new ones.”

“But--”

“Don’t argue. If you really did spend a year wandering in whatever mountains you were talking about before, you would know how foolish you’re being. We’re getting you new boots,” Liadrin said with abject finality as she snatched up the boots herself. 

“From where though?” Jaina finally got to ask. They were in the middle of the hills, and while she didn’t know the land all that well, Jaina was pretty sure there were no villages up this way, or at least that she had overheard the others saying as much. 

“The same place as that tent’s going,” Liadrin said as she tilted her head to the now neatly-rolled bundle of fabric and poles on the ground. 

At least Jaina was right about one thing, and that was that she was meant to pick it up and follow her. 

And follow her she did, to a mystery that had been answered for her last night. She’d wondered if they were sleeping rough this whole time, since she noticed that no one was carrying anything more than a bedroll as they began their walk. That was fine and all, but she was pretty sure it still rained in Quel’thalas. At least enough to warrant something, anything, to keep them dry, right?

But anything that had more weight or size to it than could easily be carried on one’s back had come through a portal last night, and was now in the process of going back out of one. Jaina had learned exactly what the function of the unit’s mage was that night, as she saw Cindel open a portal to what seemed like a sort of locker in a supply depot, perhaps even the same one that she’d gotten measured at. A locker that had shelves piled up with all the large gear a squad would need, as well as all manner of supplies--sacks of provisions, extra uniforms and armor pieces, heaps of arrows, and whatever else they might need out in the field.

Of course. Of course elves would just use magic to make even something as mundane as supply easier. 

And of course that would be why they kept a mage in a ranger squad.

Cindel was busy holding open that portal as Tessandra and Ayndais ferried tent bundles through it and back onto their appropriate shelf. It was all so incredibly...elven. Efficient, practical, but in a way, far too excessive. Sure, a portal was a simple enough spell, but to see it used just so that they didn’t have to carry as much? Well, Jaina wasn’t sure how to feel about it. 

Or how to feel about what Cindel would think of the way her sisters used her magic. Her expression certainly wasn’t an amused one, and only darkened as she approached with Liadrin. 

“Morning Cindel. Can you unlock the door for me?” Liadrin asked, holding up Jaina’s boots. “I need to have a word with the outfitters.”

“Of course, high priestess,” the magistrix responded flatly.

“It’s just me, Cindel. Just Liadrin. I won’t be long,” Liadrin said as she stepped through the portal, then through a door that must have lead back out into the depot. A door whose handle Jaina could barely see through the shimmering magic, though what little she could see of it was also beset with mana gems and a complex arrangement of golden filigree. More enchantments, of course.

“Good morning,” Jaina offered as she shrugged the tent bundle further up onto her shoulders and made to follow the Captains into the portal to put it away.

“You can just put that down,” Cindel told her, shifting a little in her stance so that one foot was in front of the portal.

“I mean...I could--” Jaina stopped herself as she remembered what Sylvanas had said about this woman, who was staring at her with hard eyes. Hard, cold blue eyes that screamed for Jaina to get away, to leave this alone, to keep out of her territory. And ears that flattened backward to match. She knew that one at least. She’d seen the same expression on stray cats before. At least Cindel didn’t hiss at her.

“I will just leave it here then,” Jaina relented and gently set the bundle down. 

She chose to go wait for Liadrin over by a tree she pretended to find very interesting. A tree that she definitely wasn’t looking around instead of looking at, because she could just catch sight of Sylvanas and Illeryn talking up on the hill above them. A tree that definitely wasn’t hiding a desperate need to talk to someone without being talked down to, or to hear a song that she at least knew the melody of, if not the words. 

\---

“You don’t think the trolls might have ventured up a bit since our last assault?” Sylvanas asked Illeryn as they stood together, heads bent over a map. She traced along their proposed route, which brought them out of the foothills along the shores of Lake Elendar.

“Not likely this time of year. They come up in the winter, when the hunting gets bad further south. Even then, few get past the Enclave without someone noticing,” Illeryn noted.

“Then I will trust your judgement. You’ve been at the front more than I have lately,” Sylvanas said as she leaned back and looked out over the view below them, where the squad was packing up camp amidst the trees.

“Beautiful and wise. You’ve really got it all,” Illeryn chuckled as she began to roll up the map, then jabbed Sylvanas with the tube of velum. “You’re trusting my maps, after all, so you should trust me.”

“Yours are the only maps I trust at all. You on the other hand…” Sylvanas trailed off with a grin.

Illeryn jabbed her with the map again before sticking it safely back into a scroll case. “You know me too well, I get it.”

Sylvanas watched for a moment as the others broke down the camp below. The tents were down, and the fire was being put out. Valeera was making a face as she doled out the breakfast porridge into bowls. That one still had some attitude to shake loose after all. Sylvanas had hoped a year in the home guard would have helped her, being able to work amongst those trusted with protecting the lands between Silvermoon and the third gate. But a year was only a year, and to one as young as Valeera, really no time at all.

She’d been left wondering what Liadrin saw in the girl. True enough, Sylvanas was duly impressed with her skills during her Thalasdiel. She’d never seen a ranger who could make themselves just disappear into the trees as easily as Valeera did. Having an expert in the art of stealth was a valuable asset to any team, and was worth dealing with any youthful tantrums she might bring with her. But Liadrin...why had she recommended her?

And where was Liadrin anyway? She didn’t see any white down below, just a sea of blue and green beneath the golden leaves.

“I meant to ask you something before we left,” Illeryn said behind her, stirring her from her thoughts.

“I have a feeling I know what it is, but ask anyway,” Sylvanas sighed, only a little bit, as she turned to face her again. 

“Why?”

Of course. As if she hadn’t answered that question a thousand times over already.

But this time, Sylvanas would answer it honestly. “Why the Proudmoore girl?”

“I mean, yes, but why in general? You know I have no problem with it, but I’ve also been trying to understand what you gain. And to me, it just seems like a lot of undue stress and headaches over the matter,” Illeryn told her, ears askew as she seemed genuinely confused. That was already a strange enough expression to see on the face of someone Sylvanas knew well enough had pretty much seen it all already. Someone who she usually saw scoffing at even the most serious of situations.

“To say what I gain from anything would be very Kael’thas of me, wouldn’t it?” Sylvanas chuckled to herself mostly. “Because if anything, I feel like I’m playing into his hand, only I’ve done so without trying to peek at his cards.”

“I take back that comment about you being wise from before then. Everyone knows you can only beat a cheater by cheating better than him,” Illeryn said, her usual grin returning.

“At least I’m still beautiful. But you’re right, there’s nothing for me to gain except the next decade worth of complaints being thrown my way. Maybe a little self-satisfaction at stirring the pot, but that’s hardly worth it.”

“So what is then?” Illeryn asked as she came up to join her on the edge of the little cliffside they stood on.

“I know you believe in intuition, old friend,” Sylvanas answered. “You know I don’t. I usually think of myself as being a very logical person. Too logical sometimes. My mother always worried that I was going to grow up cold and cruel.”

Illeryn snorted at that.

“Exactly. Even I have gaps in my logic now and then. Would you believe that maybe this time, I listened to my heart?”

“It’s not such a hard thing to dream up as you think it is, Sylvanas. Every woman in that camp knows you’re softer than the hard edges of the Ranger General’s armor,” Illeryn told her.

That much was probably true. Sylvanas looked at her rangers below, knowing that she’d done her fair share of unasked for favors for all of them, and would happily do so again. She’d been the one to insist that Cindel take an extra year off. She had listened to Liadrin’s pleas to recruit Valeera out of training a few years too early. 

Her eyes searched for her latest project. She found Jaina sitting by herself on the edge of the now mostly deconstructed camp, staring down her bowl of porridge, presumably lost in thought.

“Let’s just say that a woman doesn’t leave behind everything she’s ever known to become the first of her kind because she’s happy with her lot,” Sylvanas said. “Jaina needed a new beginning. I could provide it for her. And if I’m right, then what I really have to gain is that she’ll prove me right. She’ll be a decent ranger, and both my heart and my mind can be at ease.”

Illeryn chuckled again at that, then was silent for a few moments as she too scanned the camp below. She coughed briefly before saying, “As much as we both know her shooting is impressive, I think your new pet might need help in some other areas.”

“She’s not a pet, Illeryn. And what do you mean?” Sylvanas asked.

Illeryn pointed Jaina out again briefly. “You tell me.”

Sylvanas took another look at her. Jaina was still pushing the porridge around with her spoon, looking up now and then toward the other side of the camp, where the rest of the squad had formed little pods of conversation, twos and threes of laughter and idle talk. 

Twos and threes that kept a distinct amount of distance from her. And even when Liadrin emerged from Cindel’s portal and carried something over to Jaina, she didn’t stop to talk, but instead joined Selanay and Valeera as they bickered over something by the firepit.

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to help with that,” Sylvanas eventually replied. 

“I love all of them dearly, but they’re not the friendliest bunch. And to be fair, you did surprise most of them with this,” Illeryn said in defense of her sisters.

“I did,” Sylvanas breathed out, then turned back to Illeryn. “And I suppose that wasn’t very wise either.”

“Not wise, no, but you said your heart made that decision. Why not give them the same opportunity? Let them fall in love with her too,” Illeryn suggested with a very unnecessary combination of a shrug and a wink.

“Can you even help yourself?” Sylvanas laughed, wishing that she had something to poke the older elf with now. “But I understand what you’re saying. Perhaps they could use more proof than just my word that Jaina will be a fine ranger.”

Illeryn only offered another horrid wink in response to that.

It was enough to send Sylvanas down the hill in short order. 

“Good morning ladies,” she called as she approached the rest of the squad. “I trust that you’re all ready for another fine day of walking?”

That got her a few laughs. Good. That was good.

“Before we get back to that lovely endeavor, let’s have a game, shall we? I want to see how you’ve all improved since the last time we were all together,” Sylvanas offered.

All eyes were on her now, and almost everyone’s ears were up and alert, eager to hear what she had to say. Well, all but one pair, really. But Jaina had stood up and was edging her way closer to the crowd now. 

“For today, let’s start with the basics,” Sylvanas continued. 

She reached behind herself, delighting in the familiar motions of unslinging her bow from her back and knocking an arrow onto it. Of the feeling of steadiness, of expertise and strength, of earned mastery that she felt with the swiftness and smoothness of her actions. 

She shot her arrow high into a tree on the edge of the clearing they’d camped in. It stuck into the trunk, just below the canopy, revealing the bright red handkerchief that she’d looped onto the shaft on her walk down the hill, waving in the wind. A perfect, but very high up, target.

Sylvanas then reached back again and counted out the fletchings of nine arrows. She pulled them out of her quiver and into her hands. “You’ll each get one arrow. One make it count. Whoever can hit my target, or get the closest, gets a prize.”

“What’s the prize?” Valeera immediately shouted out. Of course she did.

“You find out when you win,” Sylvanas told her with a wry smile, and held out the bundle of arrows.

Valeera was the first to come up and take one, though the look on her face said that she very much doubted she would be the one to win. That was...well, probably true. Her skills were more in the area of close combat. Again, not a bad thing. An asset, really, but perhaps not the best trait in a ranger. Oh well.

“Liadrin and Cindel can take a shot with a spell,” Sylvanas noted as the other rangers began to come up to collect their arrows. She hoped that neither would take too much offense, as the target was well outside accurate casting range. 

As Sylvanas caught Liadrin giving her a brief nod, she knew that at least she seemed to understand.

And finally there was just one arrow left. And Jaina staring at it, still just on the edge of the cluster of elves that had formed around her. Still not sure. Still looking at her like this was another test, another attempt to get her to crack beneath some sort of pressure.

And with that, another reminder of why Sylvanas had made this decision in the first place. 

She walked over and handed Jaina her arrow. “You can use my bow again, if you want,” Sylvanas offered in a low voice as she let the arrow drop into Jaina’s open palm.

“My bow can fire these too,” Jaina told her.

“A wise woman once told me that the only way to beat a cheater is to cheat better than him,” Sylvanas told her as she held out her bow. “But really, it’s better to beat him honestly, and to have no one second guess you. To know that you were the best, even when your opponent had the advantage. Do you understand?”

Jaina thought about that for a moment before she nodded and took the bow.

Sylvanas shot her a brief smile before she turned back to the main group. “Right, let’s do this in order of seniority. I believe that means that it’s your turn, Illeryn,” she said to the older elf, who had come down from the hill just in time to grab her arrow earlier.

To her credit, Illeryn probably could have hit that shot easily enough, but she made a great show of just missing the target wide, and her arrow planted itself firmly into a limb branching off from the trunk a good five feet to the left.

Sylvanas was expecting to see her trademark grin and one of those insufferable winks when she looked back at Illeryn, but was surprised to find a confused expression on her aging features. Oh. That...hadn’t been intentional?

Similarly, Ayndais and Tessandra had a good chance to hitting the target. Both shot pretty close, and made it into the trunk at least, but the first just slightly too high, and the second just too low.

Belorin and Keloria took their shots in such quick succession that it was hard to see whose was whose. In the end, it didn’t matter, as both went wide on opposite sides of the tree and scattered off into the leaves before falling to the forest floor somewhere below.

Liadrin was next, and the bolt of holy light she shot from her fingertips fizzled out before it even reached the target. She gave a brief shrug at what was a very expected result.

Cindel’s fireball at least made it to the tree. Well, the base of the tree, only to puff out of existence just before it hit the leaf litter below. 

Selanay missed the mark as well, though her arrow looked like it was going to go high enough, it dove down rapidly toward the end of it’s arc and sank into the lower branches of the tree.

Artemisa’s shot, like the young elf herself, was very enthusiastic, but also like her, perhaps lacking in direction. It hit an entirely different tree, three trees away from the target.

Valeera did try her best for that prize, enough to make Sylvanas realize that she hadn’t thought about what kind of reward she was actually going to offer yet. Still, while her shot was pretty good, it was only just lower than Tessandra’s had been.

And finally, it was Jaina’s turn. The human stepped up to the spot the others had shot from, her hand twisting nervously on the shaft of Syvlanas’ bow.

And as she’d feared, Sylvanas began to hear a few snickers from the rest of the squad. Perhaps a whispered comment here and there. 

Jaina looked back at her only briefly. Maybe for half a moment, but Sylvanas tried her hardest to let her eyes show what she wanted to say, but could not. Let them see. Show them why you’re here. Prove it to them.

Jaina stepped into the heavy elven bow with far more grace than the first time she’d tried it in Dalaran. So she’d been practicing. Good. Very good. She drew her arrow back and let it fly.

And the snickering stopped when it hit the handkerchief and pinned it to the trunk of the tree with a resounding, and entirely too satisfying thunk. 

“Well done, Jaina,” Sylvanas said, her voice coming out calm and even, just to be sure that she let everyone know that this was the result that she expected. She remained similarly unmoved, even as she went to collect her bow and had to suppress giving Jaina the biggest shit-eating grin she could muster. 

“Well shit,” Valeera was the one to finally break the silence. “What’s her prize?”

“Shush, you greedy thing,” Liadrin scolded her quietly, but loud enough for Sylvanas to hear still.

“Your respect, I should hope,” Sylvanas told them all as she turned to face them. “Don’t forget that each one of your sisters deserves as much. I hope this serves as good reminder of that.”

A few of the elven faces before her seemed to react as she wanted them too. Some ears were sagging with a hint of embarrassment, admonished and pouting in a way only elves could. But some were not. Cindel, it seemed, was not a fan of being disadvantaged in this game, or at least hadn’t understood the reasoning behind it as Liadrin had. 

And Valeera, well, she wasn’t about to let this go. Her grimace turned into a smirk as she offered, “She’ll have my respect when she gets it out of the tree and brings it back down here.”

“All the way up there?” Jaina asked.

Shit. No. Fuck. Don’t blow this. 

It was taking all of Sylvanas’ willpower, as immense as it was, to keep her face still, though her ears were probably giving her away.

“What’s the matter? Too far for you to climb?” Valeera went on.

“I...I mean I could try,” Jaina responded.

“They’re just regular arrows, Valeera,” Sylvanas tried to interject. “No need to retrieve them.”

“No need for a ranger that can’t climb a tree to fall out of one, right?” Valeera spat. “It’s fine, Lady Proudmoore. Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll take care of it.”

They were left to watch as Valeera shot off toward the tree, a blur of blue and gold, and scaled it with ease.

An ease that Sylvanas had thought was second nature to every member of her squad. But, well, she had been wrong before. She would be wrong again. This wasn’t the end of the world.

Only this time, she wished she hadn’t been. 

The rest of the squad began to shuffle off to finish their breakfasts. Some shaking their heads, some snickering again. 

Damn.

Only Jaina was still smiling, still beaming just as much as she had when she’d made that perfect shot. She laid a hand on Sylvanas’ elbow for a moment before pulling it away, thinking better of herself, but still uttering a brief, “Thank you for trying,” before she walked back off to where she’d set down her bowl at the edge of camp again.

“Wait.”

The word came out of Sylvanas’ mouth before she could put cold logic behind it. Before she could think of the pros and cons, and weigh them out to get the measure of her actions. She was too busy finding herself an empty bowl and taking her own portion of porridge from the pot, then hurrying after Jaina to sit with her.

“Your real prize is that you get to have breakfast with the Ranger General,” she told Jaina as she caught up to her.

“Oh...well. That sounds lovely, actually,” Jaina said with that same triumphant smile.


	5. Bird Song

Summer was perhaps not the best time of year to be walking for miles and miles a day, especially in Quel’thalas, but Sylvanas didn’t mind the heat. If anything, it served as a reminder of where she was, and why they were here. It served to bring back memories of better days, when she would roam forests such as these for no reason at all, save that she wanted to. Of times where she wasn’t always listening for some threat, some intrusion, but instead to the birds in the ancient trees, singing songs older than anyone she knew, and older even than the trees themselves.

Even now, she could still appreciate the beauty of this land, the ruggedness of these distant hills in comparison with the manicured lawns and groves in and around Silvermoon. Sure, it was still all influenced by magic, as everything was. The trees here would never fully lose their permanently golden leaves. Even the birds that lingered in them, singing their songs, were sleek and elegant when compared with the same kind that would dwell in the trees of Lordaeron only just a little further south on the maps of the world. That same magic shaped everything that came into contact with it, slowly, delicately, until it was rendered all the more beautiful, all the more enchanting and pleasing to both the eye, and most other senses too.

But that was, perhaps, the slightly biased opinion of one elf, who loved her land enough to dedicate her life to defending it.

Just slightly biased.

Still, it was another reason to lead the march. She was far enough ahead of the songs and the chatter of the squad behind her to enjoy a blessed bit of relative quiet and solitude. Such things were a rarity for her these days. And no doubt, someone back in court, back in the offices at Farstrider Square, was saying that she had recruited the human simply to enjoy a reason to be away again, to escape. Sylvanas wouldn’t deny that this was also a small, and very selfish part of her many reasons for doing so. 

Well, it she was asked, she would have to, of course. Her mother had warned her. A Ranger General was no longer a person in the minds of the people, and certainly not one that could admit to craving the mixture of stillness and abundant life that was present only in the forest.

A mixture that was invariably intruded upon by the sound of footsteps approaching. Heavy ones, belonging to someone whose white robes belied the strength and the weight of the muscle beneath them. 

“Liadrin,” Sylvanas greeted the priestess before she came into step alongside her. 

“Pleasant afternoon,” Liadrin offered as she fell into stride. 

“It is,” Sylvanas agreed, genuinely, even with the trickle of sweat that was threatening to form at her temples. “How goes things in the priesthood?”

“As lively as ever,” Liadrin chuckled. “Vandellor continues to threaten to give me more responsibilities. He even dared to tsk at me over leaving to accompany you this time.”

“It’s almost as if an old man has made you his successor and wants you to take over his job so he can retire,” Sylvanas snickered.

“How very dare he?” Liadrin said with her own low laugh. “I told him he’s not allowed to retire.”

“I highly doubt he will either way,” Sylvanas assured her. “So tell me, what is it that brings you all the way up here?”

“Can’t I wish to enjoy the company of an old friend?” Liadrin asked, the projected hurt in her voice clashing with a crooked smile.

“Any time, but neither of us is that naive. Please. Say what you want to say,” Sylvanas encouraged her, turning to face Liadrin a little more even as she still kept one eye on the narrow trail they followed.

“You think I want to complain to you about the human?” Liadrin wondered, already shaking her head. “Well, I don’t. I don’t understand it, but I have no issue with it. Though your young Lady Proudmoore there was certainly an interesting choice.”

Sylvanas couldn’t help the slight twitch of her ear the followed that statement. “All the more reason to lump all the controversy in at once, don’t you think?” 

“Again, one of the things I do not understand, but not what I’m here to ask about,” Liadrin deferred.

Now she was confused. Sylvanas could feel her ears twitch upward at the thought. “What is it then? Forgive me for assuming otherwise. I realize we haven’t had much of a chance to talk lately.”

Liadrin waved that away. “None of that, please. I’m the bad one this time. You said that you would owe me a favor if I kept the Ranger Lords at bay during the induction ceremony. I am coming to collect.”

That was, well, very much unlike her. Sylvanas had chosen Liadrin for that task for three reasons. The first being that she was good friends with Lor’themar, and the two of them made an excellent and charismatic team for taking down any sort of unwanted social responsibilities. Sylvanas had made use of this many times before, and she doubted that this would be the last time either. The second being that Liadrin did not have the typical air of a priestess, all smiles and shy kindness. No, something about her screamed for attention, for command. She would have made a fine Ranger Lord herself, were she trained for the bow instead of the Light. One did not say no to her. And the third, well, was precisely because Liadrin was unlikely to collect on a favor owed. So much for that.

“So soon?” 

“Well, not until we’re through with this walk, but I would like to get the asking for it part over with, if you don’t mind,” Liadrin told her frankly.

Was that...a flush creeping into the cheeks of the stalwart priestess? The same woman she’d seen smash a troll’s face in with that hammer of hers, only to heal it back into enough working order to interrogate him later? 

“I’m listening,” Sylvanas said, now genuinely intrigued. 

“It’s not for me, really. Hmm...how to say this better than she did,” Liadrin’s deep voice sounded odd as it puttered off into a mumble. “Valeera is not exactly enamored with her position in the home guard. I wanted to ask you if you might consider finding another placement for her?”

“And one might wonder why it matters so much to you?” Sylvanas replied, keeping her voice low. “Or have I just not noticed any new jewelry on you? Let me see those ears again.”

A swift shake of Liadrin’s head proved that yes, her ears were still bereft of any new earrings. The collar of her travel robes didn’t hide any necklace chains. Her arms were bare of bracelets. Nope. Nothing new. Nothing that marked her as belonging to anyone, or at least in any official capacity.

“A friend can care enough for another friend to ask for something on her behalf, can’t she? I’m just asking, Sylvanas. You can say no,” Liadrin defended.

“You’re blushing like a girl that just got her first kiss. That’s the problem, Liadrin. You, of all people. You, whom I’m pretty sure would be the only one out of our twelve that I would lose a fist fight to. You are hopelessly enamored with that brat, and as adorable as that is, I can’t help but be more confused by it than you are about my recruiting a human into our ranks,” Sylvanas told her, smiling and giving Liadrin’s broad shoulders a playful shove.

A playful shove that didn’t even knock the surprisingly solid woman off balance. “You’re just making fun of me now. Perhaps we should have that fist fight and see,” Liadrin threatened jokingly. 

“No need. I concede already. For the record, you two would be an adorable couple. You could teach Sanguinar manners. She could teach you sass, not that you need it. Well, maybe you do,” Sylvanas noted. 

“Listen. There is no such thing, as you’ve duly noted. But will you consider something else for her? For my sake, either way?” Liadrin questioned again.

Sylvanas hummed, pretending to consider it for a moment, though both of them knew she could and would easily make the change. “Find out where she wants to be, but understand that if she says Farstriders, you’ll have to be the one to tell her she’s ridiculous.”

Liadrin beamed a smile back at her, but only let it flash briefly. “I would never agree to such a thing either. Personally, I was very happy to have her in the home guard, but…”

“Happy to have her easily within range to visit, hmm?” Sylvanas asked with a chuckle. “I wonder why it was I assigned her there in the first place?”

It was Liadrin’s turn to shove her. Luckily for Sylvanas, the priestess was well aware of her abundance of strength and kept it to a gentle push. “You sly lynx.”

“Ask her, then tell me. Anything but the Farstriders,” Sylvanas reminded her. “For my good friend and second favorite social buffer, I will make it happen.”

“Second favorite?” Liadrin said with a mock pout that looked rather strange on the hard lines of her face.

“You know Lor’themar would disown me if I didn’t put him first,” Syvlanas told her.

“Ah. Yes, he would,” Liadrin agreed with her own laugh. “And thank you. See? Not too painful of a favor.”

“So painless that I won’t even count it,” Sylvanas offered. “I will only ask that you walk with me a while so we can actually talk and catch up. Or is Valeera waiting for you?”

Liadrin moved to shove her again, but didn’t even lay a hand on Sylvanas’ shoulder before a cry rang out behind them. 

An ear-rending shriek that sent Liadrin sprinting back down the trail. 

A shriek that Sylvanas ran after too, simply because she could not place it. 

“Get it out of my hair!” 

Now that, at least, was a sound she recognized. Back in the pack of other rangers, who had now scattered away from her a bit, Valeera was fighting with something in the mass of her golden hair.

Something that seemed more intent on getting into her travel pack that said mass of hair was covering, rather than further into it. 

Something being a squirrel.

“What the fuck! Help me!” 

Make that two squirrels, actually.

While the rest of the rangers were recovering from their confusion and beginning to laugh, Liadrin dutifully ran to her definitely not more than a friend, and tried to bid her to hold still.

That proved easier said than done, though, as Valeera continue to try to grab at the creatures that were assaulting her personal space.

Sylvanas couldn’t help but not that even Jaina was trying to hide a laugh behind her hand as she stood off to the side of the trail. Maybe out of spite, for how Valeera had acted toward her earlier that morning. Well, a deserved spite, if that.

Sylvanas quickly cast her gaze aside, though. The last thing she needed to be accused of was playing favorites, or of being in the same situation as Liadrin. Sun forbid it. That was definitely not what she needed.

Liadrin had managed to shoo one of the squirrels away, only to have it jump back onto Valeera and begin to crawl it’s way up her leg. 

“They want in your pack,” Liadrin grunted as she tried to snatch the climbing creature, only for it to prove to be too fast for her on it’s ascent of the other elf.

“I don’t even have anything!” Valeera insisted as she slipped the straps of her pack off and slid it off. She threw it onto the ground, where it slid on the hard-packed dirt of the trail.

Sure enough, the squirrels immediate ceased their assault and followed the pack. They gave chase until the bag hit a tree root and clattered to an abrupt stop. It’s main hatch fell open, and out of it spilled an impressive amount of nuts. Walnuts. Almonds. Pecans. Even a raisin or two. Definitely not from someone’s trail mix. Definitely not at all.

Sylvanas couldn’t help but notice that Selanay was the one that was laughing the hardest out of all of them.

Part of her wanted to congratulate the girl on taking swift and effective revenge for what Valeera had done to her boots earlier that morning. Part of her also wished that those two had waited until maybe a little bit longer into the journey before starting another infernal prank war. Oh well. Another part of her realized that congratulating her was not an option. Not something the Ranger General should do anyway, even in such present casual company. 

Another part of her, smaller still than the others, caused a smile to flash briefly over her features before she gained control of her face again. A part of her that remembered endlessly torturing Alleria with such things. Vereesa not so much, as she would cry over it too often and tell on her. Lirath not really either, as he thought it was funny. But Alleria, well, she was the perfect target. A wonderful mixture of annoyed and impressed every time.

She would have appreciated being attacked by squirrels, in her own odd sisterly way.

“Nightbreeze!” Valeera shouted as she saw the nuts spill out onto the trail and get snatched up into the mouths of the hungry squirrels.

“You should be more careful where you store your snacks, Sanguinar,” Selanay replied, still cackling at her outrage.

“Oh fuck you!” Valeera steamed. “You’ve started something you’re not going to be able to finish and you know it!”

“A threat? Really? From someone who was just attacked by squirrels?” Selanay countered. 

“Ladies, please,” Sylvanas said, finally deciding that it was time to intervene. “While I’m all for a lecture on proper storage of supplies, we’re not going to reach the village by tonight if I have to stop to give one. And I know I, for one, would rather sleep in a real bed tonight.”

Laughter quickly died down as the elves drew their attention toward Sylvanas. 

“We’re that close?” Tessandra was the first to ask.

“Hence the different trail,” Illeryn reported proudly from the other side of the group. The route change had been her suggestion, after all.

“Only close enough if we keep a good pace for the rest of the day,” Sylvanas noted. “So, can we all behave enough to enjoy the comforts of an inn for the night?”

“I’ll have my best singing voice ready!” Artemisa volunteered from the back.

The other elves nodded their agreements, except Valeera, who had gone to scare the squirrels away from her pack and salvage whatever was left of it that wasn’t covered in nut crumbs.

And Jaina, who seemed confused by what Artemisa had said. 

Jaina, who Sylvanas should have maybe done a better job of explaining a Thalasdiel to. But it was a little too late for that. Or at least, a little too late for her to do without drawing more undue attention to the girl.

Sylvanas cast one last look at her human charge. No. It was best if she left her alone for a while. Let her get her bearings. Let her make her own way.

She knew she could.

\---

“I just never knew there would be so much singing involved,” Jaina admitted. It felt good to say something about it, even if Illeryn had been prying about her what had caused her to stop being so chatty ever since they paused for Valeera’s squirrel problem earlier in the day.

The older elf laughed at that. A friendly, commiserating laugh, or at least that’s what Jaina read it as. “And would that have influenced your decision to join us, had you known?” Illeryn asked midway through her chuckle.

“Probably not,” Jaina said. “But it would have been nice to know. I stand out even more now because I do not know a note of these songs.”

“You probably know more than you think,” Illeryn told her. “Just try to tell me these aren’t tunes you’ve heard in Lordaeron before, only with Common words sung over them.”

“Maybe?” Jaina offered. Truth be told, a few of the constant stream of songs had sounded familiar to her over the course of the last few days. She chalked it up to the general similarity of folk songs, not to their melodies having been borrowed.

Artemisa had been marching ahead of them most of the day, as Illeryn offered to bring up the rear of the troop on the narrow trail, and Jaina had found herself gravitating towards a friendly face. The young elf mostly sang along with the ever-present trail songs, perhaps a little too loudly and a little less graciously, but had been slowly but surely butting into their conversations more and more. She seemed, well curious about Jaina. Curious in a way that suggested she hadn’t spent much time around humans, but too shy to be direct about it.

“We’ve got to sing for our supper tonight,” the young elf called back over her shoulder. “You should learn to sing with us to earn your plate!”

Jaina shot Illeryn a questioning look at that. So was that what the young ranger had been talking about before?

“A silly old tradition, which I’m afraid we’re prone to having a lot of,” Illeryn explained. “Most respectable inns in Quel’thalas will house and feed a squadron on Thalasdiel free of charge for a night. We just have to sing a song for the innkeeper as payment. Some don’t even bother with the song anymore.”

“That’s not true!” Artemisa interjected, spinning around to walk backwards as she spoke. “Everyone loves the songs. It’s tradition!”

Illeryn cast a side-eyed glance towards Jaina at the last word. Clearly, she’d had enough of tradition in all her years. And clearly, Artemisa was still young enough to be enamored with it.

Despite Illeryn’s eyeroll, Jaina turned to the younger elf with a smile. “Would you teach me then? So I can sing with the others?”

“Oh...I...I’m not...me?” Artemisa stammered. 

“You seem to know all the songs,” Jaina pointed out. “I’ve heard you join in on every one of them.”

“Well, um...Illeryn? What song should we teach her first?” Artemisa asked as she turned back around to walk normally and fell in with Jaina and Illeryn, truly testing the width of this barely-traveled trail, which wouldn’t normally fit three across, if not for her insistence. 

Now shoulder to shoulder, with the Captain in the middle, Illeryn could only sigh at this sudden predicament. “How did I know it would end up being me, hmm?”

Artemisa only answered that with a sheepish little grin.

Illeryn nudged Jaina with a too-close elbow and said, “We’ll do an easy one. Just listen for now. I will sing the main part, Artemisia will sing the first harmony. Then we’ll do it again, and you join her. Can you do that?”

Jaina nodded, though she wasn’t truly sure if she could follow through. It had been a long time since music had been such a persistent part of her life. But, well, it didn’t seem like she was going to have a choice here. No time for second-guessing. What was the old phrase? When in Stormwind…

Illeryn cleared her throat. She hummed the beginning of a tune, just a few notes, and Artemisa nodded vigorously in agreement with it. 

Only then did she begin to sing, in her low, slightly scratchy voice. There was an honesty to it, though, that Jaina appreciated very much. Illeryn didn’t try to sound any better or any different. She sang with what she had, and made not attempt to hide it. And, like every elf, the result was lovely either way.

_“I hear a bird chirping up in the sky,  
I'd like to be free like that, spread my wings so high.  
I see the river flowing, water running by,  
I'd like to be that river, see what I might find.”_

Jaina could tell it was time for Artemisa to come in even before a single sound left her mouth. She was already bursting with anticipation, a goofy smile lighting up her face. Her higher, youthful voice lifted over the top of Illeryn’s simple melody.

_“I feel the wind a-blowing, slowly changing time,  
I'd like to be that wind, I'd swirl and shape the sky.  
I smell the flowers blooming, opening for spring,  
I'd like to be those flowers, open to everything.”_

Most of the songs were like this one, both in their format and in the subject matter of their lyrics. Jaina had taken the time to write down a few of them she’d like the most. This would definitely be one of them. They always centered on the natural world, on the beauty of the land and it’s creatures and how it was worth everything. And, as for the structure, it was usually a main melody, with at least two harmonies that followed it along. Some songs were rounds. Others were not, but their purpose always seemed to be to fill the whole forest with music. Even if it was just a few of them at a time, the nature of the songs themselves made it seem as though an entire army was singing them.

After a pause, Illeryn continued on her own again.

_“I feel the seasons change: the leaves, the snow and sun.  
I'd like to be those seasons, made up and undone.”_

And Artemisa caught up with her again in her higher harmony.

_“I taste the living earth, the seeds that grow within,  
I'd like to be that earth, a home where life begins.  
I see the moon a-rising, reaching into night,  
I'd like to be that moon, a knowing, glowing light.  
I know the silence as the world begins to wake,  
I'd like to be that silence as the morning breaks.”_

That was another thing too. So much about the moon and the sun. Day and night. Always. Every song at least had one reference to either in there. 

Jaina knew that elves worshiped the sun. She knew that the moon was a goddess to them too. Well, only the largest moon, for some reason. But their priests had spun that mysticism into the belief of the Light as well. Yet here, in these songs, perhaps that worship still retained it’s more ancient form. Perhaps it spoke of a people who measured time in greater cosmic movements, for whom the dawning of another day meant less, but somehow more.

It occurred to Jaina that this song was being sung just for her. They had fallen off quite a bit from the rest of the pack. She honestly couldn’t remember the last time anyone had sung for her. Even if it wasn’t done with such sentiment, this was very nice. 

Nice enough for her to match Artemisa’s wide smile.

Both women came in this time, but staggered this repeated verse into a bit of a round.

_“I hear a bird chirping up in the sky,  
I'd like to be free like that, spread my wings so high.  
I see the river flowing, water running by,  
I'd like to be that river, see what I might find.”_

And then joined together to finish it off in their harmonies again. 

_“I feel the wind a-blowing, slowly changing time,  
I'd like to be that wind, I'd swirl and shape the sky.  
I smell the flowers blooming, opening for spring,  
I'd like to be those flowers, open to everything.  
I'd like to be those flowers, open to everything.”_

Jaina wasn’t sure it was appropriate to clap, but she did it anyway.

Artemisa clearly approved, as she was all but bouncing down the path. “Good choice!” she noted to Illeryn first, then leaned ahead to look at Jaina. “Do you think you can sing my part?”

It wasn’t too bad, actually. Jaina had listened as well as she could, and really, the tune had been carried by Illeryn for the most part. She just had to provide the backup. “I will give it a try.”

Giving it a shot proved not to be all that bad. Artemisa ended up squishing herself along the other side so that Jaina was in the middle, and proved to be a good coach for cuing her on when to come in. Jaina, to her credit, wasn’t as rusty of a singer as she thought herself to be. 

And fuck did it ever feel good to be a part of a song again. From the very first note that left her, she felt it--a subtle pull toward the women next to her, a unity that she’d forgotten about. All at once, it came back to her. Nights in the student taverns in Dalaran. Singing along at court dances in Lordaeron. Shanties on the docks in Boralus. Derek playing his fiddle for her. Her father, singing her his lullaby.

She missed this. She had missed it so much. Just for a moment, even when she belted out a note a little too high, she still felt as though she belonged, as though she were a part of something. Jaina hadn’t known such a feeling in years. 

And really, she had resigned herself to never knowing it again.

The song finished. Their last notes rang out through the trees sounding as though they came from three times as many people. Artemisa laughed, and even salty old Illeryn gave her an approving nod.

Then her long brows dipped in concern. “What’s wrong, Jaina? You have a lovely voice, and that was a pretty good first try. You should be proud.”

Jaina hadn’t realized that there were tears forming in her eyes until one betrayed her and slid down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away. “Nothing. It is nothing. I am just glad I did all right.”

Illeryn seemed to realize that this was not territory to tread into today. “We’ll have to work on the way you talk next,” she noted.

“What is wrong with how I talk?” Jaina asked. She had been working very hard on her accent, her pronunciations. No one seemed to have trouble understanding her. It was fine, right?

“You talk like a book,” Artemisa said plainly. “A fancy book.”

“And you don’t know how to curse,” Illeryn added. “Now, repeat after me…”

\---

The inn was rustic for an elven establishment, which was to say that it was still on par with some of the best that Jaina had stayed at in her entire lifetime. The innkeeper, an older-looking elf that maybe had even more in the way of crow’s feet than Illeryn seemed to be thrilled with their song, and the rest of the squad was delightfully confused when Jaina joined in and sang along to the first harmony with the other young rangers.

She noted a pattern then. It seemed as though the older, higher ranking members of the troop all sang the main melody. The younger ones were expected to sing the harmonies. That would be another thing to write down in her journal tonight.

Jaina realized that she was making this experience into as much of a field study on elven culture as it was her own new life. Well, she couldn’t help herself. Besides, she thought about it as making things easier for the next human ranger, if there were to ever be another one. There had been no books about this for her to read. No dusty tomes that explained these weird little traditions and quirks. Writing them down was a much a study as it was a reverence. Jaina found that she liked them so far, once she came to understand them.

“You learned the song?” 

Jaina turned away from the musing she had been doing over her dinner to find Sylvanas coming to sit down next to her. Most of the rest of the rangers had cleared off to the other side of the common room, gathering around the brazier there that provided both a pleasant low light and an unpleasant amount of heat for Jaina’s taste on this summer night. She had instead remained back at the table to pick at the intricate little tarts they have been served for dessert, and wonder how it was that the innkeeper had time to make such delicate things every day.

Magic. It was probably magic. Everything was magic here. How could she forget?

“I had Illeryn and Artemisa teach me,” Jaina told her. “I thought it was important that I could join in. That was not too much, was it?”

Sylvanas shook her head and smiled. The glow of her eyes caught the edge of a fang as it slipped past her lips. “Not at all. You should have them teach you more. I know they may have looked a little shocked today, but your sisters will appreciate you trying to bridge the gap of your differences. And you have a pretty voice.”

“That’s kind of you to say,” Jaina said, realizing that she’d slurred the first two words together as Illeryn had taught her to earlier, and that yes, that somehow did sound more natural, didn’t it.

The little perk of Sylvanas’ ears told her she noticed that too, but didn’t feel the need to mention it. “I had it in my mind to leave you be for the rest of the day, that you might do better if you weren’t seen as the Ranger General’s pet. You did very well indeed.”

“I appreciate your help all the same,” Jaina told her. “Even if it didn’t go so well this morning.”

“A minor miscalculation on my part,” Sylvanas admitted. 

“I suppose I should have Illeryn teach me how to climb a tree properly next,” Jaina noted, not being able to help the little peal of laughter that followed it.

This was nice. Whatever this was. A check up? A casual conversation? Jaina hadn’t realized how much she’d missed the Ranger General’s snide comments and extremely expressive ear twitches until she herself pointed out that she’d left her alone. 

“You had best consult someone else for that, but don’t tell Illeryn I said so,” Sylvanas said, following it with a laugh of her own. 

Light, even the way she laughed was perfect. Sylvanas just had a way with things, one Jaina would have to learn to emulate. She was just so confident and steady, yet...genuine. Everything about her seemed so real, not forced, even if Jaina knew there was no way she could spread herself so thin as to care about everything like that. But damn if she didn’t make it seem that way. What did one even call that? Charm? 

Sylvanas Windrunner was incredibly charming, then.

But just as quickly as she had come, she was going again, standing up and gathering her drink, taking it over to where the others were. “Just keep trying,” Sylvanas offered as one last piece of encouragement. “I know the others will see the same thing I see in you soon enough.”

What that was, exactly, Jaina would wonder about for the rest of the night. Even as she and the others were shown to their oval beds, situated in a circle around the edge of the upper room of the inn, and curtained off by sheer blue fabric that would rival the most wonderful ball gowns Jaina had ever seen. Yet there it was, just separating her with the barest hint of privacy as she cast aside her ranger armor, and settled into the silken sheets. 

Sleep didn’t come quickly today, even with all the walking she’d done. Her mind was still too focused on what Sylvanas had said, what it was that the annoyingly perfect Ranger General saw in her. Why she continued to try to support Jaina through this.

She distracted herself with her journal for a little bit, conjuring the smallest and dimmest of magelights she could once everyone else was asleep and as was certain that Cindel, and more importantly, Sylvanas, wouldn’t notice her slightly cheating on the whole no magic promise. 

A little magelight wasn’t even really that bad, right?

Instead of rambling on about the string of thoughts that threatened to crack her skull, Jaina focused on the song she’d learned, writing down its lyrics and noting her observations on who sang what parts of it. Tonight’s entry turned into a regular essay on elven musicality, but that was fine. It was enough to get her eyes to droop by the end.

But her eyes weren’t too closed to miss a little movement in the dark, well out of the range of her light. She heard nothing, but saw the flap of a curtain sway open. She saw a figure move into the shadows of the room, and out of them again a little closer to her.

Jaina locked eyes with Valeera. She could only tell it was her due to the slight green tint of the blue glow that followed her light. A light which Jaina snuffed out immediately.

Valeera set a finger to her lips, keeping her eyes on Jaina as she made her way into another bed.

Liadrin’s bed. 

For all Jaina knew, the priestess was still sleeping, and Valeera did not appear to wake her. There was just more elf under those covers now. Well, two elves tangled together, at least. Just sleeping.

That was...very interesting, to say the least. Perhaps another thing that she should probably not write down. But definitely a thought that accompanied Jaina as she laid down and made her best effort to sleep as well.


	6. Let Me Down

She knew exactly three songs now. Not a lot, not even enough of a library to allow her to sing along with the squad as they walked. But it was something. It was more than Jaina had known three days ago. 

She only wondered when the others would catch on to the fact that Artemisa always seemed to want to suggest a song for them every day, and that Jaina always knew that one. She sincerely doubted that many of them care enough to pick up on this, but had noticed a few more heads turning each night. Whether or not that was a good thing, Jaina had yet to decide.

Her mind didn’t take the time to dwell on that. As she walked along, trailing near the back of the pack, mostly by herself when Artemisa and Illeryn didn’t feel up to music lessons, Jaina had a lot of time to think. And her mind had been intent on settling on the same subject for the last few days. 

“I know the others will see the same thing I see in you soon enough.”

The phrase rang through her head like a bell that only she could hear, tolling as clear and as regular as if it were chiming in the hours.

What was it that Sylvanas saw in her? In the weeks since they’d first met, since Jaina was surprised at the Ranger General’s initial rejection and then very sudden acceptance of her, she still hadn’t figured that out. Jaina liked to think herself good at reading people. Good enough at least to understand what people’s intentions were toward her. It wasn’t a skill she was necessarily proud of, but one that she had developed more as a defense mechanism than anything else.

But Sylvanas? She didn’t understand her. She didn’t know the reasoning behind all of this yet. She had plenty of guesses, some informed and many more emotional, but nothing concrete. Nothing other than the fact that the Ranger General appreciated her accuracy with the bow and her determination.

But surely those weren’t reasons enough to deal with all the problems that Jaina’s mere presence was causing her, right?

Footsteps falling near her served as a reminder that no, she wasn’t really alone with her thoughts right now. Selanay had fallen back nearly in step with her, just a little ahead. She called over her shoulder, past Jaina, “Captain, how close are we to Lake Elrendar?”

Illeryn was bringing up the rear of their line again today. Jaina could hear her begin to hurry forward a few steps to get closer so she didn’t have to shout. “Should be within sight of it pretty soon. Looking to go for a swim?” Illeryn answered after she caught up.

Selanay dropped further back, offering Jaina the briefest of nods only as she joined the older elf. “Of course,” she told her. “But we’ll cross out of the gate there.”

“I hadn’t imagined you to be the sort that cared about that kind of thing,” Illeryn noted.

Jaina’s curiosity was piqued, but she did her best to keep her eyes on the trail ahead and look like she didn’t care about what they were talking about.

“I don’t,” Selanay answered with a little snort of laughter. “But it means I get to start making fun of the city girls.”

“One particular city girl, I might guess,” Illeryn said with her own chuckle.

“Maybe,” Selanay said as she started to jog up past Jaina again, then called ahead of her as she rounded a corner, “You hear that, Sanguinar? Time to get the shakes!”

Jaina could finally turn back toward the older elf to give her a questioning glance. 

“Ban'dinoriel,” she answered.

Jaina wracked her brain for the translation. She’d...never heard that word before. Gate? Gate something?

Illeryn must have read the confusion on her face. “The shield. Part of the elf gate. From the Sunwell?”

Oh. Right. Jaina had read about this. A magical shield that served to encase Silvermoon and its more immediate surroundings in a layer of enchanted protection that did everything from preventing unauthorized teleportation to acting as a physical barrier in times of great need. Oh, and it also marked the furthest extent of the Sunwell’s fullest power. 

“Of course,” Jaina turned fully and said, carefully walking backwards to keep up the pace. “What did she mean, though, about the city girls?”

“Those that dwell within it get used to the constant presence of the Sunwell. Surely you can feel it too, with your magic? It’s like a song being played two rooms over. Distant, but familiar. Always there,” Illeryn explained.

Jaina didn’t necessarily agree. She could feel the Sunwell, sure, but it was more like a clash of unintelligible noise. Neighbors arguing through not so thin walls in the next apartment over. Smelling someone cooking something you didn’t necessarily like across the street. Present, yes, but annoying. A constant distraction, really. A constant reminder of its own vastness, of the power it held, screaming at her about how great it was, but also how it wasn’t hers to tap into.

“I suppose,” she answered instead of voicing any of that.

“When we cross Ban’dinoriel, it will begin to fade and grow sporadic. No one’s going to get the shakes, but those who are used to that power will begin to miss it. It is just a much a part of us as anything. Just like a drunk will crave his next bottle of wine, we’ll want for it. We’ll make up for it in other ways, of course. We eat more, things like that,” Illeryn told her.

Jaina nearly tripped over a tree root, but recovered gracefully enough to decide she’d rather not walk backward anymore. She fell in beside Illeryn instead. “But you already eat a lot,” Jaina pointed out.

They did. They ate so much more than Jaina thought they would. She’d watched even the smallest of them polish off more than the heartiest of Kul Tiran captains, or the biggest paladins of Lordaeron. Shit, even the innkeeper’s granddaughter at the place they’d stayed last night, a child of indeterminate age as all elven children were, but whom only came up to Jaina’s waist--she’d eaten an entire chicken herself. Or at least, she’d eaten that much in between asking Jaina “just one more question” at least a dozen times, plus an untold amount of the sweet pastries that came after it. Jaina had counted four of those pastries crossing Illeryn’s plate as well. 

“You don’t eat enough,” Illeryn countered.

“If I ate as much as any of you, I’d make myself sick,” Jaina admitted, rejoicing in the fact that the more relaxed flow of her Thalassian words was starting to match those of the elves around her. “I just don’t understand how you can fit it in your stomachs.”

Illeryn shook her head with an odd, mostly flat smile. “Any one of us could go for a week or two without food while in Ban’dinoriel’s range. We could just draw on the Sunwell for that energy instead. The physical hunger isn’t pleasant, but it’s manageable. But for us, it’s more about making the choice of where to get that energy instead. Rely too much on the magic, and you’re just like that drunk I was talking about before--forever laying in the gutter, wanting more. If you learn to rely on other things, then you can do without it better.”

“I think I understand,” was all Jaina could say to that. 

She couldn’t really understand, of course. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to feel like the grating presence of the Sunwell was more like a pleasant lullaby. Sure, she was getting used to it, just like one got used to a sunburn. It was uncomfortable and obnoxious, but only when you paid attention to it.

And that had been another conversation. One that had drawn quite an audience earlier that morning, when she had to explain to Liadrin that the redness on her chest and arms was a reaction to being in the sun too long, and not from getting tangled in poisonous vines or anything. Jaina had to spend a good quarter of an hour explaining that the sun could burn and injure things, and drew enough debate from the elves that Sylvanas had to call them to order and get everyone back on task again.

Peels of laughter and cries of excitement from up front thankfully drew Illeryn’s analytical gaze from her as she looked ahead.

Jaina joined her, and could just see the sparkling of the afternoon sun on water. A vast lake, that stretched out into the horizon, only leading to more water, and the ever-present trees that lined its banks. And the rest of her squad doubling their pace ahead of them, obviously eager to get to it.

“It’s huge,” she remarked.

“Almost as big as an elf’s stomach,” Illeryn answered with a wink. “Come on, we’d best not get left behind.”

Jaina hadn’t known what to expect when she reached the lake, but cast off armor pieces piled on the sandy bank was not what she might have imagined. And undershirts. And leggings. And underclothes.

And several naked elves diving into the very clear water. Too clear, in fact. 

Jaina looked at Illeryn, desperate to think of some sort of comment, to look for solidarity in the older elf. Instead, she found her shrugging off her hood and cloak, and unhooking the strap that held her quiver and bow to her back. Illeryn didn’t feel the need to offer further explanation as she went to set her things beside the others and start to take even more off.

Desperate to hold on to some of the sense of shame she’d been raised with, Jaina quickly scanned the lakeside for anything to look at that wasn’t a naked elf. Literally anything. Damn if they didn’t all have such a nice shape to them, though. Damn elves.

She found it, way off to the left. A runestone. A massive one, no doubt one of the markers for the border of the gate. Right. That was a thing to be interested in. Certainly worth looking at for a good long while, and looking at very, very closely.

As she hurried over to it, Jaina wondered if she would ever get used to the general lack of modesty that was just built into elven culture. That was going to be hard, though. Very hard, considering every one of them was so damn beautiful, and so prone to lacking proper clothes at any given time. Even now, Jaina tugged on the front of her cuirass, pulling it further down over her chest, suddenly made very aware of how dangerously far it had ridden up over the course of the day’s walk.

When she looked back up again, she found she wasn’t the only figure approaching the runestone. Thankfully, though, the other two there were also clothed.

“Not going for a swim, Liadrin?” Sylvanas herself was very much clothed as she asked that question of Liadrin--very much the picture of constant readiness. 

Jaina realized she had never seen her otherwise. Even as the rest of the squad had no problems being in various states of undress and mess around her, Jaina had never seen Sylvanas missing a scrap of her armor that she didn’t have some reason for removing. Rarely even was a hair out of place beneath her hood. In fact, had she even seen her without a hood? Ever? At all?

Not yet.

Liadrin was similarly still clothed, and though not as irritatingly impeccable as Sylvanas, seemed to conduct herself to the same higher standard. She was up early every morning, hair coiffed into its usual high ponytail already, the white of her robes cleaned of the previous day’s road dust, pristine again in the light of the dawn.

She currently had her hand on the runestone. Jaina could see the scale of the thing now, matched up against the surprisingly solid priestess. Liadrin was about the same height as any of them, but the stone--a deep gray that shimmered with hints of blue in the sunlight, and it’s glowing rune etching--had to be as tall as ten of her, maybe more.

“Just saying hello to an old friend first,” Liadrin answered as she finally looked over her shoulder, then turned further to look at Jaina. “An old friend I had a feeling you might want to see.”

Sylvanas’ ears twitched then, as she listened for Jaina’s steps before even turning to face her. “Ah, so it would seem,” she said as she gave a little glance behind her, before going to join Liadrin.

“Is that alright?” Jaina asked, slowing her approach. 

“Depending on who you ask, that’s a matter of opinion,” Liadrin informed her. “But I believe you are asking two people who are of the opinion that there should be nothing off limits to you. Come, it won’t bite.”

Jaina nodded to that, a smile daring to form on her lips as Liadrin lumped herself in with Sylvanas on that matter. She could certainly feel the pull of the runestone now. It drew her with that same discordant, but undeniably alluring energy that the Sunwell radiated. If it’s size was impressive, than the raw power that it channeled was even moreso. She just...she just very much wanted to touch it. That was all.

And if that was allowed, so be it.

After an encouraging nod from Sylvanas once she stuck her hand out, Jaina did just that. She didn’t know what she was expecting. She felt only cold rock beneath her fingers, and just the tiniest buzz of magic, hidden deep within it. In fact, the coolness might have come from the arcane, but that was it. There was no spark, no great rush of power that threatened to knock her off her feet.

Jaina should have known better. Ancient though it was, this runestone was like everything else elven--purposeful and elegantly designed. It was for directing power, not offering it. 

“It doesn’t bite at all,” she said as she let her hand flatten against the stone fully. The tentative fingertip touch was clearly no longer necessary.

Liadrin chuckled at that, then removed her own hand from the stone. “Not until we tell it to, at least,” she explained. “The shield is dormant now, of course. The stones are resting.”

“And if they weren’t?” Jaina ventured to ask.

“You certainly wouldn’t be able to do that,” Liadrin answered.

“If the forcefield didn’t rip you to shreds a mile away first,” Sylvanas added with her own little smug lilt. “Ban’dinoriel is a powerful tool, though, only used in such a way when it’s truly needed. I should hope I never have to see it activated again.”

Right. The Second War. Jaina nearly cursed under her breath as she withdrew her hand. All of them probably remembered it. Most of them were probably veterans of it. She...she needed to be careful about that. It was just so strange to think of all these youthful faces around her being those of ancient veterans of many more wars than that. But that one, well, they had lost so much in that one. 

Jaina looked at the women that surrounded her now, both not looking at her, but wistfully up at the great stone. The Ranger General and a High Priestess. Of course. Of course they understood that power, and they certainly remembered how it was to use it, and what the cost was of such things.

Suddenly, the Second War had become more real to her than it ever was in her father’s stories.

Then she felt something. Just a ringing in her teeth. A vibration that resonated briefly in the back of her throat. A distant thrum of power. A pulse that beat along like a drum.

And for just a second, a song that played along with it. Just a flutter of distant, heady notes, like the sound a wind chime hanging from a far off awning, swaying in a gentle breeze.

And then something warm and wet, splashing up against her, along with a now very familiar laugh.

“Valeera!” Liadrin protested first.

A very naked and very amused Valeera was still half submerged on the shoreline, and offering no apology for the amount of water she’d splashed on them. And Liadrin didn’t seem all that offended either, not with that little smile that she couldn’t seem to help. Not at all.

“Are you done touching rocks yet? You said you’d swim with me!” Valeera said to her as she directed one more splash the priestess’ way.

Jaina was really making her best effort not to look at Valeera at all. Not to notice the way the bratty young elf’s golden hair fanned out over the water, or the way that water dripped across her curves. Curves that might have been on display several times before--that were always on display, really.

So instead she looked to Liadrin, to the way the hardened features of the priestess softened as she looked at Valeera. At the subtle lift of her ears, and the way her mouth curved into an adorable smile that otherwise looked so out of place.

“Go back to the others and I’ll join you in a moment,” she replied, her voice warm and soft, even in its low timbre. 

This was a look Jaina recognized. Even in elven features, it was the same. A look she had seen pass between her parents in those rare, quiet moments that they weren’t too busy to be in the same room. A look she had once imagined herself sharing with Arthas, though that never came to pass.

Jaina tore her eyes away then, suddenly feeling more out of place than ever. She kept her hand pressed to the cool stone, willing its energy to steady and center her thoughts.

“You’d best go after her,” Sylvanas offered as Valeera swam back toward the distant sounds of laughter and more splashing further down the shoreline.

Liadrin let a little sigh slip out then, one that out came as a mixture of annoyance and the kind of thing that look was conveying before. “I suppose you’re right. Maybe the two of you should join us as well?”

Jaina tried very hard not to flinch that the notion. She was about to try to think of an excuse when Sylvanas responded for both of them.

“Maybe in a while. Go on. Enjoy yourself, and that girl of yours.”

They both watched as Liadrin walked away, Jaina finally turning so that her hand fell from the stone. Sylvanas didn’t give her much time to think about missing the ebb and flow of its power, though. 

As soon as Liadrin was out of earshot, she asked, “I’m going to guess that you have no intention of joining the others?”

“Unless you are about to tell me I should?” Jaina replied, already feeling her cheeks heat up at that admittance.

“No. I’m not. I know that you have a different concept of what is and isn’t shameful than we do. There’s nothing wrong with that. And while I’d say it would be a good thing to minimize such differences, you should never feel the need to do so at the expense of your own comfort,” Sylvanas told her. 

“I really...appreciate you saying that,” Jaina answered, feeling a weight lift off her shoulders. So much so that she was even surprised at how heavy it had been.

Sylvanas laughed a little at that, then leaned over. She touched Jaina just barely, just on the bare skin of her upper arm beneath where her shoulder armor ended. Just enough to give her a light, reassuring squeeze. One that was too familiar, too tactile for human cultural norms, but one that in this case, was very welcome.

“You can study the stone for a bit, if you wish. I know that even if I said otherwise, I’d see you drawing it in that little book of yours. I will keep watch nearby,” Sylvanas offered as she let go.

Jaina nodded to that plan, eternally grateful to have an excuse. “Why do you keep watch then, and not someone else? Don’t you want to swim too?”

“Of course I do. But someone has to watch over them. I’m used to it. I would do it even if I didn’t have to,” Sylvanas tried to explain. 

Jaina could see there was more to those words. She could see it in the subtle flex of her long brows, in the way those ears fell backward a little. Even as stern and commanding as she was, Sylvanas was like any other elf. So expressive. So alive. So much still a wild thing, tamed only by the grace of magic.

She tried not to think too much about that as Sylvanas wandered off to a bit of high ground between her and the others.

\---

Sylvanas found a comfortable enough spot on the little hill. She sat, setting her bow, quiver, and rucksack aside, just within arms reach. To her left, most of the squadron was in the water, though some had already come out to lay on the sand and dry themselves in the summer sun. To her right, Jaina found a good spot of her own, and was seated with her back to a tree, sketching in her journal already. Just as Sylvanas had thought she would. 

From here, she could see both easily enough. She could see Ayndais even, who was swimming out much further than the others--as comfortable in the water as she had always been. Liadrin's robes were on the shore already, mingling with a set of ranger blues, and the priestess herself was swimming toward Valeera, as promised. Even Cindel was in the water, which was something of a relief.

But Jaina, well, she certainly seemed more at home by herself, beneath the dappled shade of the trees that loomed over the runestone. She smiled to herself as her pen worked, inquisitive gaze traveling between her writing and the runestone. Definitely more content to enjoy this new experience on her own rather than to join the others.

That was a feeling Sylvanas knew all too well. Truth be told, she would be happy on either side, so being alone in the middle was a fitting place for her. It wasn't that she thought herself above either of them. No, definitely not that. It was just where she belonged, hanging back, watching, distinct in her distance. A distance she had known all her life, from the moment she entered this world as the Ranger General's daughter, and doubly so since she had inherited her mother's position.

It hadn't been that long ago. Sylvanas looked toward the stone again, and caught herself wondering what would be different if her mother had made it beneath its protective barrier, if the Amani hadn’t taken her so quickly and so unexpectedly at the beginning of the war. This was something she wondered about more often than she could ever admit.

She heard them before she saw them. Their footfalls were always distinct. Clumsy, hard, betraying their massive size and weight. Even when trolls tried their best not to make noise, any elf worth their salt could hear them coming.

Or at least, any elf that wasn't too busy splashing around in the water, of which there was only one.

Sylvanas stood and reached for her bow and quiver all in one fluid motion. She swung the arrows into position on her back, and already had one knocked when she first caught sight of blue-green skin moving amongst the trees, near the runestone.

"Jaina!" she called as she looked over, and immediately realized that no, Jaina would not know the hand signals she was about to make against the shaft of her bow. Shit. She really should have taught her these, but it was too late now.

A thought crossed her mind as Jaina turned to her, her small brows raised in alarm as she saw the weapon in Sylvanas' hands.

Many trolls knew a fair amount of Thalassian. They had to negotiate with their enemies, after all, and to understand the information they were so fond of torturing out of them. Sylvanas knew a fair bit of their language herself. But Amani trolls had little occasion to even hear Common, much less speak it.

So Sylvanas switched to the human tongue, "Three to your right. Come to me."

Jaina understood this and acted on it with a calm and clarity that Sylvanas had not expected from her. She was already armed with her spell bow and trotting over to Sylvanas as the commander let out a shrill whistle toward the other side of the bank. The elves there immediately began to swim in toward the shore, but bereft of their weapons and armor, they wouldn't be of much help.

This was bad. She should have kept others on watch with her. She shouldn't have trusted in Illeryn's reports. She should have…

No. Now was not the time. Think. What would mother say? Act quickly and decisively. Apologize to yourself later.

Whatever weakness in her strategy that she could see was plain to the trolls as well. She and Jaina were outnumbered, but the trolls did not know that they were the ones who were outgunned. Not yet, at least.

One broke through ahead of the others, charging them. A big brute of a berserker, with his massive stone axes held high. Sylvanas would have to shoot over Jaina's shoulder to hit him. That was hardly a concern, though, as she knew even as she fired that one of her arrows would not be enough to drop him.

And she was right. She went for his eye, and the troll was smart enough to deflect the shot on the blade of his axe. With the second arrow, she took a chance on his knee, but only proved herself right as it sank into the flesh of his thigh, and the troll hardly stumbled for it. 

But Jaina reached her then, panting, but ready. She drew back her bow, the energy of her shot already crackling to life on the string before she paused to ask, "Permission?"

Sylvanas fired her third shot at the second troll that came out of the woods, a spear-thrower whose range they were thankfully well out of, but who was far away enough for her to just miss. A shaman lumbered out after him, hauling a heavy totem on his back. 

"I said that you need not ask when lives are at stake. Aim true," Sylvanas reminded her as she lined up to hit the big berserker again.

Jaina offered a brief nod to this, then continued to gather her power. She fired a blast of arcane at the same time as Sylvanas loosed her arrow. Together, both of them struck the berserker hard in the chest, staggering him, and more importantly, frightening him with the flash of purple magic that seared at his skin. Only for a moment, but still, he stopped and wiped a three-fingered hand across his chest, before grunting and coming after them in a now limping charge.

"Nice shot!" Sylvanas said, sticking to Common. "Take him down. I will get the shaman."

Truth be told, she had seen enough of those totems to know that he had to be the first to go. Even now, she was beginning to feel uneasy, as fear crept into her mind, emanating from the carved sculpture, and very much starting to understand to grimace that the troll wore as he carried it around on his back. The chaos and confusion she heard going in behind her as the others scrambled for their weapons would not be helped by the hex that was coming for them.

So Sylvanas drew her bow back as far as it would go, and managed to put a quick end to that with a powerful shot that sailed straight into the shaman's heart.

That was five. Fifteen more arrows left in this travel quiver. Damn, why hadn't she brought a larger one?

More importantly, who was going to get demoted for letting a patrol get this far over the border? 

Someone, that’s for sure.

Sylvanas lined up another shot for the spear-thrower again, but he ducked around a tree. Six. 

Out of the corner of her eye, a flash of white and blue, then a grunt of frustration that was a little too close for comfort. She turned to find the berserker, half-encased in ice from a massive blast of frost that Jaina had shot at his legs, tripping him and freezing him to the ground. Not for long, though, as he was succeeding in his struggle against the ice. It cracked and buckled around his powerful legs as he writhed within in, snarling like an animal.

Sylvanas shot again at the spear-thrower. Though she heard him cry out, she couldn’t be sure if it was from surprise or pain. He dove for cover again in the undergrowth. Seven.

The berserker was getting up. Sylvanas moved to draw her saber. He was getting too close to shoot. She moved to guard Jaina, putting her shoulder in front of her. She wasn’t sure about her recruit’s short range combat abilities, but this was not the situation to find out in. 

So when Jaina surged past her, she was really more worried than surprised. But she didn’t stop her. She just watched her step into a shot with perfect form, only her arrow was a bolt of pure arcane, snapping and crackling like the flames of a roaring fire times ten, only in purple and blue. This was not a shot meant to deter or slow, but clearly a mass of power meant for nothing else but to kill.

Jaina let it go, sending it straight into the berserker’s head. To her credit, she only looked away after being certain that his eyes looked back up at them as nothing more than black, smoldering sockets. 

Sylvanas found herself too taken-aback by that raw power to drop her saber and shoot again. Thankfully, an arrow sailed past them from the shoreline, and made contact with the head of the spear-thrower as he tried to run away, one of Sylvanas’ arrows from before sticking out of his arm. He fell into the very cover that had saved him before, but did not get up again. 

Sylvanas looked back over her shoulder to nod at Tessandra, who stood with her bow still ready on the shoreline--bereft of any clothing or armor as she had made the correct decision to prioritize her weapon instead.

The others, well, they were still in a wet disarray, some still in the water, most just getting out of it. It was all over that quickly. 

Sylvanas then turned her attention to the woman next to her. Jaina was breathing hard, staring off at the trees, trying very much not to look at the body of the troll that lay nearly at her feet. But not in a way that evoked pity, or suggested weakness. In a way that told Sylvanas that she knew what it felt like to fight for her life. That this hadn’t been the first time. In a way that spoke of that same heady rush of blood that she knew all too well, that was even ringing in her own ears now. That they both appreciated the moment in which it began to pass. 

She let her have that moment. She let Jaina relax her iron grip on her bow. She watched her arm relax, guiding the alabaster weapon down along her side, as the weight of it suddenly became too much. 

Only then did Sylvanas catch that arm. She caught it in a tighter grip than she had before, but squeezed all the same, until Jaina turned to her, her dull eyes wide, but tired.

“Well done, Jaina,” she breathed, just loud enough that she thought only Jaina could hear her.

But apparently it was loud enough for the ramshackle assortment of rangers behind them, dripping wet, hair askew, still mostly undressed, to follow with a resounding whoop--one that echoed across the lake, and one that was sure to scare away any other trolls in the area. 

Sylvanas watched as Jaina’s features fell, softening into a tiny smile. She looked to her first, then at the others. 

“I think they are beginning to see what I see,” Sylvanas told her, and watched that smile widen, though she wasn’t sure exactly what that meant otherwise. Not yet, at least.

Power? Maybe. Determination? Certainly. Something else, something that she couldn’t name, but admired so? Possibly.

“You know what?” Jaina said as she hooked her spellbow across her back again, her voice picking up volume with each word. “I think I would very much like to go for a swim now.”

That was met by another whoop, and by half of the elves shucking off the clothes they did manage to put on and turning back to the water, and the other half coming over to meet Jaina halfway as she strode toward the bank.

Sylvanas relaxed then, watching them with a smile. Or at least, until someone yelled, “You too, Sylvanas! Get over here!”

\---


	7. One Voice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus points if you now know who Cindel is supposed to be ;)

"You've been blessed by Belore," Sylvanas could hear Liadrin say with a laugh behind her.

Followed, of course, by the sound of hurried footsteps. "Bullshit!" Valeera cried out as she jogged up the line. "Let me see!"

"What are you even talking about? Why is everyone looking at my face?" Jaina asked.

Sylvanas turned around to find that the train had stopped behind her, and instead of an orderly line of marching rangers, she now had herself a knot of curious elves tangling themselves around an understandably slightly uncomfortable human.

A human who now had a noticeable pattern of freckles across her cheeks, as Sylvanas knew was normal for the pale ones of their kind to have on occasion, when they spent time in the sun. As she knew was rarer among her own people, and though the same correlation existed, was still considered a sign from their sun goddess of exultation. Sylvanas herself was one of the rare elves to sport a near constant smattering of freckles on her cheeks, but she had also endured it being interpreted as a sign of her worthiness and high birth since childhood. 

But, she wasn't about to spoil this. Perhaps, if she could not fully convince this lot that Jaina was worthy of their company, than perhaps Belore herself could.

Valeera leaned in and poked at the bridge of Jaina's nose in jealous disbelief, or perhaps hoping to smudge them away.

"The freckles?" Jaina asked, using the Common word for it, as the Thalassian one was literally just translated to "sun's blessing". "You don't understand freckles? But the Ranger General has them. Right?"

"She's the Ranger General," Belorin offered, as if that would explain anything.

"You are a human," Keloria said to back up her twin sister, though she was equally as unhelpful.

Jaina swatted away Valeera's hand as she went to poke at her again, and waved the curious younger elves that had surrounded her away. "It's not a blessing," she tried to explain. "I get these from being in the sun a lot. Like sunburn. In fact, sunburn turns into these. You should see my shoulders. They're even worse, what with all the swimming we've been doing."

Swimming, that Sylvanas noted Jaina now participated in without much of a second thought. Swimming, which she was in fact very good at. No surprise, coming from the observance of one who was raised by the sea to another. Swimming, which had led the others to start to become much more comfortable with Jaina, though perhaps maybe too comfortable, too tactile, and naked far too often. They were starting to treat her like an elf, which was both a positive and a negative.

A negative in that Valeera had to poke at her a third time to be truly satisfied, and that Jaina was starting to get overwhelmed with the amount of touching that was going on that morning.

A negative also, in that Sylvanas felt the need to step in and help, explain that maybe they should give her some space. But, no. She shouldn't. She would just erase the progress that had been made in those last few days by the lake. 

A negative, also, in that she couldn't stop feeling this way.

"I've been getting these all my life. It's just from the sun," Jaina assured them as she successfully warded Valeera off with a gentle shove that time. 

"We consider anything the sun does to be sacred," Liadrin tried to explain through another laugh. "So, if Belore marks you, she must be trying to tell us something."

"I hope it's a good thing," Jaina sighed as she straightened out her hood, which still slipped back on her head too much, even after they had attempted to alter it for her short ears not to have any part in holding it up.

"I hope so too," Sylvanas finally butted in, and watched as the younger rangers suddenly seemed very interested in falling back in line as she spoke. "Perhaps Liadrin could enlighten us further once we reach Dawnstar Spire. I trust that you would all be more comfortable hearing a sermon in Magister Drathir's parlor than you would on the side of the trail."

Well, Sylvanas would not be, but that was a thought for another day.

Though the grateful smile that Jaina gave her was a thing that occupied her thoughts for longer than she wanted it to.

The distance that she had planned to maintain was getting harder and harder to keep. Part of it was due to the nature of this ritual, of course. Thalasdiel was as much about re-establishing the bonds between squad members as it was anything else. Thus the months spent in close quarters saw even Sylvanas relaxing her guard and letting her Ranger General mask slip now and then as she spent time in the company of old friends like Liadrin. It was good for all of them to see her as a person too, something she knew she had to show more of, even when she was barking out orders and leading a charge out on the field.

Another part of it was just for Jaina herself. She was so damn interesting, yet gave away so little. Sylvanas found herself watching her more often than not, not wanting to miss anything new. And sun above, Sylvanas was proud of her. Way too proud of her, actually. Jaina was really starting to fit in. Even now, she was still in the middle of the pack that walked behind Sylvanas, chatting with Artemisa, modern slang already creeping easily into her vocabulary that had been down right bookish a mere week ago. Most of the others would hold a conversation with her now, or even tried to start them. Well, most of them. Not all.

That was another mountain to climb.

But also, she could fucking fight. Sylvanas was less ashamed at how impressed she was with seeing Jaina in actual combat. The strategist in her has been busy these last few days, thinking of what a line of arcane archers like Jaina could do in a battle. Of what she might call them. The sheer power of those shots...damn. It was something between arrows and artillery, and Sylvanas was enamored with the possibilities of using such power. 

She could never tell Kael'thas, though.

But even having Jaina save their skins hadn't been enough for some of the squad. Valeera was still acting like a child that had been introduced to her new baby sibling and was not at all pleased with the idea of no longer being the center of attention. Or at least that was Sylvanas' interpretation of it. Perhaps the young elf just plain didn't like Jaina. The twins too, seemed to be put off by her still, but they rarely spoke to anyone other than each other, so perhaps that was just normal. And Cindel. Of course, Cindel.

Sylvanas had known that the timing in this case was very poor on her part. But even then, even if Cindel had been back in the squad again another ten years, this would have irked her. No one likes to be outclassed, and even though Jaina had mostly made good on her promise to refrain from using magic, it was impossible for any of them not to notice the thick sheen of arcane that clung to her, singing praises of the human's power and prowess. Sylvanas even wondered if Jaina was aware of this. Probably not.

She gave a glance over to their magistrix. Cindel walked alone, near the end of the line. 

"Tessandra," Sylvanas called back to the captain that was the closest behind her. The other women's ears perked up as she awaited an order. "Take point for me for a while, if you don't mind."

"Not at all, Ranger General," the veteran dutifully replied as she began to move in front of her to scan the trail ahead.

"Sylvanas is fine out here, you know," she reminded her.

Tessandra offered a grin to that, which spoke of many things she could not say to her commanding officer, or at least did not feel free enough to do quite yet.

Perhaps, in another month, when the soles of their boots had lost more and more of their thickness, then maybe she would say it aloud. Maybe then she'd be comfortable enough to accuse Sylvanas of what she was always guilty of--of forgetting that there were indeed times that she could be "just Sylvanas", but that she had to act in kind as well.

Sylvanas tried to fit an acknowledgment to all of that in a nod and a flick of her ears as she dipped back down the line. She also had to try to ignore Jaina's hopeful look as she passed by her, and met up with Cindel further behind. She tapped the dark-haired mage's shoulder, and gestured for her to wait on the trail with her.

"Cindel and I will watch our backs for a while, Illeryn," Sylvanas called back to the older captain, who was keeping her usual position as the rear guard again. 

"Only if you ask nicely," Illeryn chided as she passed them. At least that one was never afraid to speak her mind. She would even when Sylvanas was in full regalia or commanding a battle. In fact, she had. Many times.

"Pretty please," Sylvanas sneered back at her with a grin. "Go socialize."

"Gross," Illeryn snorted even as she moved up to the middle of the pack.

"I take it you wanted to talk?" Cindel asked as they watched the others begin to fade into the trees ahead.

Sylvanas turned to her and nodded as she set a hand to Cindel's back and bade her to walk along with her.

And pretended not to notice how quickly it was shrugged off. 

She gave the smaller woman a brief glance. The last few years had represented a large change in Cindel's life, but her appearance was as it always was. Dark hair, another rare feature for an elf, which she wore in the same loose ponytail she always had. Glowing blue eyes cast to the ground. Ears adorned with just simple silver, but on her neck, a chain that held a pendant with a brilliant ruby shaped like a flame, which she wore proudly over her robes at all times.

"I wanted to ask how you were," Sylvanas finally started, keeping her voice low even though they had dropped pretty far behind by now. "How your family is."

"I wouldn't be here if I thought they wouldn't survive without me, you know," Cindel responded after a moment, finally looking up at her.

"I know," Sylvanas replied softer still. "I have worried for you. And, knowing your husband, I will worry about him and your little girl all the same if you aren't with them."

That finally cracked the first smile from her that Sylvanas had seen in this whole walk. "He's actually wonderful with her. He keeps the house tidier than I can as well. I don't worry about them, so you shouldn't feel the need to."

"That's good. That was how my father was too. He somehow always managed to keep us fed, mostly clothed, and entertained while mother was in the field. The only way I could ever get in serious trouble with him was to get mud on the carpets," Sylvanas said with a laugh. 

Fuck. She missed him. Every time she went back to the Spire, she expected to see her father sticking his head out into the foyer to remind her to take her filthy boots off before she dared to walk on his floors. And every time, she would remember to do it anyway, even when the hall stayed silent.

"I have said many things in the past that I did not mean," Cindel went on, eyes on the ground again as they walked. "And I know I've already told you as much. But I know why you worry."

"Your barging into my office in Silvermoon, crying as loudly as the baby in your arms comes to mind, yes," Sylvanas said.

"Things are better now," Cindel replied.

"I know."

"What did you really want to talk about, Sylvanas?” she finally asked.

“Not the past, that’s for sure,” Sylvanas told her. “So we can let that rest where it belongs. I wanted to talk to you about your future here, to make sure you felt it was as secure as I do.”

“Ah, so I see it’s my turn now to complain about the human,” Cindel said with a shake of her head, finally looking back up at Sylvanas. “You might have already guessed how I feel. And now that I’ve seen what she can do, how do you think that is?”

“I feared as much,” Sylvanas admitted. And she had. She had watched as Cindel began to be the one that distanced herself from the others, as Jaina started to find a place within them. As she had kept to the banks of the lake, or taken her dinner to the edge of the fire’s light at night to eat alone. 

“You said you had no intentions of replacing me,” Cindel reminded her. “Yet you bring on a mage that is twice as powerful as I have any hope of being and tell me she’s a ranger? What am I to believe Sylvanas? Your sweet words, or my own eyes? If you didn’t think I would last here, you could just say so.”

“And I feared that you still felt the way your eyes told me you did when we first spoke of it,” Sylvanas pointed out as she ran a hand under her hood and tangled it into her hair, pulling at the silvery blonde strands perhaps a little harder than she needed to. “And yes, I regret not doing more to ease your mind then.”

“You can practically taste the magic around her! What’s she doing here? She belongs back in Dalaran!” Cindel said, realizing that perhaps she was getting a little too loud, and tapering off into a whispering yell at the last syllable.

“According to her, she does not. I had hoped the two of you might find common ground there, but that would require you to actually have a conversation with her first. She’s just looking for a place to belong, Cindel. None of the human kingdoms are home to her,” Sylvanas tried to explain. “A story very different, but at the same time, very similar to that of most ranger mages.”

“Well, at least I should take comfort in knowing that she’s well above the level of just opening anchored portals and placing wards. I bet your little sea kingdom princess there wouldn’t take kindly to being given such lowly work,” Cindel spat, kicking aside a fallen branch as they walked.

“You’re starting to say things you don’t mean again,” Sylvanas warned.

“Because that’s all I can do. I’ll never be able to fry a troll’s eyes out of his skull. Don’t think I didn’t see it. That’s how I’m useful, because I allow the rest of you not to be steeped in the mundane. It’s my mundane. My ferrying you a new pair of socks, or teleporting to the depot to ask them for more arrows, or conjuring the kind of mana bun everyone likes as a treat. I will never be her. I will never have that kind of power. I have already found my place, Sylvanas. Until now, even with all I went through after I had my daughter, I was content with it,” Cindel offered, descending into that agitated whisper again.

“Jaina doesn’t want to take your place,” Sylvanas tried.

Cindel looked up, capturing Sylvanas’ gaze with hard eyes for a moment before she answered that with, “Perhaps not, but she might make it unnecessary.”

In all her plotting and daydreaming about having an army of Jaina's at her disposal, Sylvanas had not considered what that might mean for the ranger mages that accompanied them--those who were just skilled enough to earn the title of magistrix or magister, but not progressing much further beyond that. Her mother had been the one to create a place for them with the rangers so long ago, to give purpose to those mages who did not show enough promise to make ranks among their own. She had not thought about how they would feel, acting as a taxi service for far more powerful spellbows who could do all the same things as them, only infinitely better.

"Perhaps you hadn't considered that," Cindel responded to her silence.

"In some ways, I thought I had considered it overly much, but now I'm seeing that I hadn't nearly thought about it enough," Sylvanas admitted. She took a few steps forward, stopping Cindel as she stood in front of her. "I do not want to replace you. I do not want you to go away. I don't even want to give you an excuse or an easy out because I feel you need to retire. I don't. I want the same thing for both you and for Jaina. I want you to have a place to belong."

Cindel stared up at her from beneath her blue hood, gold-trimmed to signal her status as the group's mage, as if her travel robes didn't give that away enough. "It would be easier for me to accept those words, if I knew that's what I truly wanted," she said after a while.

"What is it that you want then? Why did you come back?" Sylvanas asked, daring to lay another hand on the other woman's shoulder again. 

Cindel didn't shrug it away this time. "So that my daughter would be proud of me. So that, at least for a while, until she knows better, she would have something to look up to in me," she answered.

"That's a better reason than most," Sylvanas told her.

"What would you do if you had a child? If you had a little person whose entire world you were? Would you let her see her mother as a failure? As weak and unfit? Or would you keep trying to be something for her?" Cindel went on, fists balling and eyes hard as she looked up at Sylvanas.

"I would do everything I could to protect her," Sylvanas answered, squeezing Cindel's shoulder a bit for emphasis. "And that's exactly what you're doing now. You are here, fighting for her and for thousands of other daughters. It doesn't matter how you fight. It only matters that you are willing to."

Cindel let out a breath, that then turned into a laugh as she steadied herself against Sylvanas, gripping the arm that held her shoulder still. "I hate how right you always are," she said.

"I've been told it's infuriating," Sylvanas replied. "Do you believe me now?"

"I'm trying," Cindel told her.

"That's all I can ask for," Sylvanas said with another squeeze before she let go. "Come on now. I take it all that chatter ahead means the others have spotted the Spire. It's time for us to go endure your husband's master."

"I can hardly wait," Cindel rolled her eyes as she replied and followed Sylvanas down to the trail, toward where the waters of the lake were just becoming visible through the trees again. 

\---

Jaina only had a few moments to wonder at the identity of the foppish elven magister that came out to greet them, with the oversized feather in his hat waving in the lakeside breeze. 

From behind her, Sylvanas called out to him with a voice dripping in forced enthusiasm, "It's been too long, Dar'khan."

"Has it really?" Dar'khan asked with a smirk and a flick of his ear that ruffled the feather in his hat again. A flick that Jaina now knew meant that he had about as much affection for Sylvanas as she had for him, and that they were both well aware of how little that was.

"No," Sylvanas laughed, and demonstrated that with the position of her own ears as she stepped ahead and back into the lead of their little group with her usual long, graceful strides. "But thank you for hosting us again anyway."

"My Spire has become a regular party now," Dar'khan scoffed.

"I'll say it has," another male voice added as his distinctly angular silhouette appeared in the doorway.

"Prince Kael'thas. What an unexpected pleasure," Sylvanas greeted him as he swaggered out onto the steps. 

“Magister Drathir and I were just finishing up a meeting. I’ll be out of your hair before you know it,” he assured her. 

“Oh, go right on ahead then, don’t let us interrupt,” Sylvanas said, her voice still laden with undeniable ire. Jaina supposed it didn’t make sense to hide it if all parties knew of her discontent. 

Curious then why this Magister Drathir would even invite them to spend the night at his Spire then?

A shadow crept in front of the doorway again, and Jaina was beginning to wonder if there were any other mages that Sylvanas couldn’t stand that she had yet to meet. 

“Cindel!” another male voice cried out before even half of him came into view.

“Al’theas?” the magistrix in question asked as she stepped out from the back of the crowd of rangers.

The door swung open the rest of the way to reveal an elven man with long blonde hair and impeccable red and gold robes. A mage by the looks of him, and decently high ranking enough to afford such finery. And on his hip, a little girl--a toddler with the same golden hair, wearing a little red dress. 

“Al’theas!” Cindel cried out again as she ran up to meet him. 

They met halfway, just at the bottom of the stairs. All the sudden, Cindel, who was honestly as cheerful as a storm cloud on the best of days, was nothing but smiles and laughter as she ran into his waiting arm, and let him wrap her in a tight embrace with it, as he held the child up to her with the other. 

For some reason, it had never occurred to Jaina that any of her squadmates, much less catty Cindel, might be married, or have children. Yet, there they were--a wonderful, happy little family. She blamed it again, on their infernal agelessness. It was hard to think of someone as being matronly when they all had the bodies of twenty year olds, and good-looking twenty year olds at that.

Still, Cindel was the last person she expected to be lavishing her little girl with kisses and coaxing a few quiet little words from her--and in turn speaking her own to her. Jaina couldn’t hear them, but imagined that it would be the sort of thing that a little girl would like to hear, maybe that her dress was pretty, or that her mother had missed her smile.

It was all such a sudden change or perspective on this woman that Jaina almost felt a headrush from it. She had been so sure that Cindel was a miserable bitch in all aspects of her life, as she had not budged one bit on the nasty glares she kept sending Jaina’s way in these last two weeks of their walk. Even after the incident with the trolls, where the others had started warming up to her, Cindel had kept her distance, her coldness. 

But now it was clear that she was just that person when Jaina was watching. Very clear, as she took her child from her husband and held her close, looking happy as anything.

“Now that I’ve appeased my very insistent apprentice with this little surprise,” Dar’khan sighed toward Sylvanas, still watching all this unfold from just beyond the doorway, “I should like to finish up that meeting. You have arrived earlier than I expected, so your accommodations are still being prepared. But I’ll have my servants bring some refreshments down to the parlor for your rangers while you wait. Do me a favor and ensure that Magister Daybringer isn’t distracted too long.”

“I am very curious as to what a great meeting of the minds this might be,” Sylvanas noted with more sarcasm dripping from her voice. 

“Curious you shall remain, Ranger General, lest we bore you with talk of magical theories and research,” Kael’thas answered, perhaps just a little too quickly to be subtle.

But, let’s face it, with all the frantic ear movement between those three, nothing about this conversation was subtle. At least, if one had eyes.

“Fair enough,” Sylvanas said with a nod. “Come on then, rangers. Perhaps Cindel will introduce us to her family once we get inside.”

“Oh I am holding that baby, whether she tells me I can or not,” Illeryn threatened with a grin as she began to stalk up toward the little family.

Jaina was nearly too busy still being awed by the transformation in the squad’s mage. Just almost too absorbed, but she still caught the look that both Dar’khan and Kael’thas were giving her before they slipped back through the door and into the spire. She caught it enough that Kael’thas answered her eyes with a wave. But why were they looking at her? 

Perhaps this Dar’khan Drathir didn’t take kindly to having to put up with a human guest in his home. But by the time she made her own way into the spire, he and Kael’thas were already rounding the spiral stairs and disappearing into the upper floors, so she wasn’t going to answer that question today.

Instead, she found herself a spot in a comfortable chair on the edge of the circle that had formed. Close enough not to be fully outside of it, but far away enough not to be in it. When the servants came around with glasses of wine, she took one and pretended to sip at it for a while, as she watched the other rangers pass around the little elven girl. It seemed like children were quite the novelty to them. 

Now that Jaina thought about it, she hadn’t really seen that many children. Even in Silvermoon. In any human city, the streets would be filled with them. It would be difficult to go into a market town in Lordaeron, or dockside in Boralus, and not be just absolutely tripping over children. But there just weren’t a lot of them here. 

Come to think of it, why would there be? Constantly producing a younger generation wasn’t necessary when the older one wasn’t due to die out for several thousand more years. If anything, children were probably a very conscious choice among the elves. More questions to ask. More things to discover. More pages of journals to fill with her ideas, only to be proven wrong by some offhand comment from one of her squadmates a day or two later. As much as it proved frustrating, Jaina was starting to love unraveling the little mundane mysteries of the elves. All their quirks and notions, so normal to them, but still so foreign to her.

But, she did think that it might be nice, to have children because you wanted to, because you were ready to welcome that love into your life, and ready to provide for them, and not because you were told that you must before you get too old.

Still, she didn’t think that she would be welcomed to meet this little girl, who she had learned from the excited babble of the others was called Eledrea. That was fine, really. She knew Cindel didn’t like her. She knew that she felt threatened by her. Jaina certainly wasn’t going to be able to change her mind on any of that. Not when the woman wouldn’t talk to her, or even look at her without furrowing her long brows, or flattening her ears like a cornered cat.

So she was very much surprised when little footsteps toddled her way, and were followed by the shuffling a blue robes. Cindel caught her daughter as she wobbled a bit, and kept steering her towards Jaina.

The others were distracted now, chatting and enjoying their wine and snacks. All except for Sylvanas, who gave Jaina a brief smile, then laid a finger to her lips as she turned and went to butt in on a conversation between Cindel’s husband and Selanay.

“This is Eledrea, my daughter,” Cindel said as they came to a stop in front of Jaina’s chair. “And I think you might be the first human she’s ever seen. She’s very curious about you.”

“That’s all right,” Jaina said, giving the little girl a smile, then looking up at Cindel, who was oddly enough, smiling back down at both of them. “Hello Eledrea. Nice to meet you.”

The girl didn’t go to hide behind her mother at the greeting, but she didn’t answer it either. She just stared up at Jaina with her shining little eyes and giggled. 

To her credit, Jaina slid her infernal hood back from her hair when she walked inside the Spire, another custom she noted that the elves didn’t seem to follow. So her differences were in plain sight. Her short, and unpointy differences.

“How old is she?” Jaina asked.

“Just about to turn four,” Cindel said. She cocked her head a little, then found a free chair near Jaina’s and slid it out for herself before taking a seat in front of her. “We grow up a little slower than you, so you probably thought she was younger.”

“I’ve never been the best with children, so I would have taken your word for it,” Jaina answered with a chuckle at her own expense. “But I figured as much.”

“She’s also much more talkative when she’s not in a room full of strangers, but aren’t we all?” Cindel offered.

Jaina nodded to that, unsure of what to make of her sudden attempt at casual conversation.

Luckily for both of them, little Eledrea had different ideas. She stumbled her way up to the tips of Jaina’s boots, before looking up at her and holding her arms up in a sign so universal that it would no doubt cross most cultures, not to mention entire species. Jaina had even seen little orcs do this with their parents in the internment camps. As little as she knew, or wanted to know, of children, Jaina knew that the little girl very much wanted her to pick her up.

Still, she shot a questioning look to Cindel first, not daring to fulfill this simple request. Not yet.

Cindel just gave her a nod, and another strangely warm smile again before warning, “It’s fine. She’s probably going to touch your ears.”

“I’m used to it,” Jaina said she steadied herself and picked the little girl up, setting her on her lap. 

Eledrea let out a brief squeal of delight, then did exactly as her mother warned she would, and went to tug on one of Jaina’s rounded ears. 

“Gentle,” Cindel reminded her. “You’re lucky that Jaina is tolerating you, you know.”

The toddler was surprisingly gentle in her exploration all the same, and it seemed as though she just wanted to test if Jaina’s ears were real. She let go after a moment, and was then just happy to stay smiling up at her.

“She’s a very happy little girl,” Jaina noted as she steadied the child, who barely even squirmed.

“Always has been, ever since she was a baby. Thank the sun for that. I was a wreck when I had her, so her little laugh was the only thing that kept me going for quite a while,” Cindel confessed, scooting her chair a little closer so she could straighten out her daughter’s dress.

“Difficult pregnancy?” Jaina asked. “Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a pregnant elf…”

Cindel shook her head. “No, just difficult for me to adjust to having to care so much for someone else. I love Al’theas. You will too, if he ever stops schmoozing over there and gets to introducing himself. But he can take care of himself. Loving someone that can’t take care of themselves at all, who needs you for everything? That was something I wasn’t ready for at the time.”

“I’ve never thought of it like that,” Jaina said, even as she had to steady the girl again to keep her securely in her lap. 

Eledrea giggled again at that.

“Exactly,” Cindel told her. “But I wouldn’t change anything for it. I thought I wouldn’t get to see her again for months now, but I’m so glad that Al’theas brought her here to visit. I needed a reminder of why I’m here.”

“Minna,” Eledrea cooed, looking toward Cindel and holding her hands out.

Jaina didn’t know the word. It took her a moment to realize that she was just trying to say “mother” in Thalassian, but not quite hitting the last syllable.

Jaina lifted the girl up and helped Cindel transfer her from one lap to another. “She’s certainly worth fighting for,” Jaina noted once Eledrea was settled in her mother’s arms again. 

“So you do understand,” Cindel said, still looking at her daughter as she spoke, and giving her a little kiss on the forehead before she looked toward Jaina again.

Jaina, meanwhile, was not sure what it was that she was supposed to understand. 

“I want my daughter to be better than me one day,” Cindel told her, as she stood the little girl up and helped her balance on her knees. “I want her to be the best apprentice in her class. I want her to get high rankings in the magistrate. I want her to study and research and enchant everything she comes across. I don’t want her to be just a ranger mage, doing what she can with what little power she has. That’s the reason we have children, isn’t it? To give them everything we couldn’t have.”

“I mean, everyone wants their children to have the world,” Jaina told her. “But what did you mean, about ranger mages?”

Cindel looked back toward Jaina, her brows suddenly shooting up. “You don’t know, do you? After all this…”

“Don’t know what?” Jaina asked again.

“Ranger mages are the lowest of the low. We’re the ones that can’t find a placement after our apprenticeship, so the rangers take us. We can’t really put up a fight, but we can make their chores go away. We can portal in their supplies and such, but nothing else very useful,” Cindel explained, and settled Eledrea against her again, hugging the girl close. “My husband at least is working under Magister Drathir, and will soon enough come into his own. Me, well, this is probably the best I’ll ever do.”

“You shouldn’t say that,” Jaina told her. “Maybe magic is different for you than it is for me. Maybe they teach it differently here, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s that your potential, your power, is only a thing that you can limit. No one else can tell you where it ends and where it begins. You are the only one that knows where those limits are, and I still have no idea where mine are yet. I honestly have no idea how old any of you are, but I’m going to be that even the oldest magister among you still hasn’t found his yet.”

“That’s...kind of you to say, Jaina, but really, I’m not--”

“You’re not the lowest of the low, Cindel,” Jaina said flatly, shaking her head. “Don’t let anyone tell you that. Don’t let yourself believe that. You’re just still learning. Just like your daughter. You’re still learning.”

“Even when my teachers have told me there’s nothing more worth teaching me?” Cindel asked, looking a little less incredulous now.

“Get new teachers. Seriously. If you want to do something, just try. Keep trying. Fail, then try again. I once wanted to learn illusion magic. I tried to make an apple look like an orange for two days. Couldn’t do it. Then all the sudden, I could give myself red hair for the day with no problem. I made my master’s pen into a snake way too many times that day and got sent to go look up reference books for the rest of the afternoon as punishment,” Jaina divulged, laughing at the memory of old Antonidas smacking his own pen off the desk for the third time in a row before sending her away. 

Ah yes, the good times, before she went and ruined it all with that same damned curiosity.

“I’ve always wanted to try illusions,” Cindel noted with a new little smile. Her ears, which had been drooping back before, were now just slightly perked forward in interest.

“I mean, I can help, if you would let me,” Jaina offered, still unsure of how the other mage might take her offer.

Cindel looked at her child again. Eledrea was snuggling back into her, her little eyelids drooping as sleep threatened. She had gotten so comfortable so quickly, as if knowing she belonged there, that she was safe in those arms. 

She looked back at Jaina with her answer, “If you wouldn’t mind.”

Jaina nodded. “Not at all. I haven’t had anyone to talk to about magic with for a while now. Well, besides your prince, but he’s rather insufferable. Don’t repeat that, please.”

“I wouldn’t. And I agree.”

A laugh came over Jaina so quickly that she snorted it out. “Why haven’t we talked before again?”

“Does it really matter?” Cindel asked her beneath a giggle of her own.

“No, it really doesn’t,” Jaina assured her.

Two glasses of wine, one brief introduction to Al’theas, who was indeed a delight, three courses of an overly fancy dinner, and a short break for Cindel to tuck Eledrea in for the night later, they were still talking--still telling stories of their very different apprenticeships, and sharing secrets of their craft. 

And Jaina noted three particular sets of glowing eyes on her and Cindel as they talked, though honestly everyone had looked on in a mixture of confusion and astonishment at some point in the night. But Sylvanas wouldn’t stop grinning at her. And Kael’thas and Dar’khan kept glancing her way, only to smile when she caught either of them.

And to keep smiling as they talked among themselves again.


End file.
